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SEYMOUR 
VANDELEUR 



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LIEUTENANT VANDELEUK. D.S.O.. 
SCOTS GUARDS 

As A BlMHASHI OF IHE EGYPTIAN ArMY. OmDT KM \ N . }H(jS 



SEYMOUR 
VANDELEUR 

THE STORY OF A BRITISH OFFICER 
BEING A MEMOIR OF BREVET-LIEU- 
TENANT-COLONEL VANDELEUR, D.S.O., 
SCOTS GUARDS AND IRISH GUARDS, 
WITH A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF HIS 

CAMPAIGNS 

BY COLONEL Fl L 'mAXSE 

C.B.. D.S.O., COLDSTREAM GUARDS 
WITH WATER-COLOUR ILLUS- 
TRATIONS BY NICO JUNGMANN 



NEW YORK: LONGMANS, GREEN ^ CO. 
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE 

LONDON: THE NATIONAL REVIEW 

OFFICE, 23 RYDER STREET, ST. JAMES'S MCMVI 







The Author begs to acknowledge permission 
given by the editor of the "national 
Review " for certain chapters which ap- 
peared IN that Review to bk incorporated 
IN THIS Volume 



4-0 5^; 



PRINTED AT THE UALLANTVNE PRESS, 
LONDON ; WATER-COLOURS REPRODUCED 
I3V THE MORTIMER ■ MENPES PRESS 



TO 
SEYMOUR VANDELEUR'S 
BROTHER -OFFICERS 

OF THE BRIGADE OF GUARDS 
I DEDICATE THIS MEMOIR OF 
THEIR COMRADE AND FRIEND 
IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY 
REMIND THEM OF HIS STRENUOUS 
LIFE AND HELP OTHERS TO 
FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS 

F. I. M. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 

I. Early Life 

II. The Story of Uganda 

III. Soldiering in Uganda 

IV. The Story of Nigeria 

V. The Acquisition of British Nigeria 

VI. England on the Nile 

VII. The Egyptian Army at Work 

VIII. On the Atbara 

IX. Omdurman, September 1898 

X. Another Year in the Sudan 

XI. In the Boer War 

XII. The End 



PAGE 
I 

26 
46 

68 
94 

122 
146 

185 
211 

254 
282 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 
page 

Lieutenant Vandeleur, D.S.O., Scots Guards Frontispiece 

Cahiracon, Vandeleur's Home on the Shannon, Ireland 14 

The Victoria Nyanza 34 

Masai Warriors 48 ^ 

Road-Making in a Uganda Forest 62 

On the March in Nigeria 106'' 

A Water-Wheel on the Nile ia6 ' 

Lord Kitchener in i8go 156 

A Soldier of the qth Sudanese 184 ' 
Maxwell's Brigade at the Commencement of the Action, 

Battle of Omdurman, 1898 22a 

QTH Sudanese, Guard of Honour at Omdurman. 1898 250 ^ 
The Boer Laager at Paardeberg on the Morning of the 

Surrender 264 ^ 

" On Trek " in South Africa 274 ' 

Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Seymour Vandeleur, D.S.O., Irish 

Guards, igoi 282 



24 



MAPS 

1. Somaliland 

2. Uganda and East Africa 66 ' 

3. Nigeria and W. Africa I20 ' 

4. Plan "Battle of the Atbara " 208/ 

/ 

5. Plan " Battle of Omdurman " 232 

6. Egyptian Sudan, No. i 238 

7. Egyptian Sudan, No. 2 252 

8. Africa in 1884 End 0/ book 

9. Partition of Africa 1902 „ 



SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY LIFE 

Cecil Foster Seymour Vandeleur, the subject of this 
memoir, known to his friends as Seymour Vandeleur, 
was born in London on July ii, 1869, the eldest child 
of Hector Stewart Vandeleur, Esq., of Kilrush and 
Cahiracon in county Clare. His mother was a daughter 
of WilHam Orme Foster, Esq., of Apley Park, Shrop- 
shire. His father is at present Lord-Lieutenant of 
county Clare. 

The Vandeleurs are of Norman origin and have been 
settled in Ireland since 1660. They seem ever to have 
been a race of soldiers and Seymour did but follow 
the traditions of his family in his life of active service 
abroad. Of his five great-uncles, four attained the 
rank of general officer and figured conspicuously in 
the campaigns of their day. Thus, General Sir John 
Ormsby Vandeleur, K.C.B., born in 1763, commanded 
a Light Cavalry brigade at Waterloo. General Paken- 
ham Vandeleur fell at Delhi. Crofton, another brother, 
died in Antigua. The fourth, also General Vandeleur, 
held the command at Cape Town during the Kafir 
War of 1801. Frederick, the fifth brother, did not 
live to gain the distinction won by the others, for he 
was killed in action while still a captain at the battle 
of Vittoria. 



2 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

In describing a life which still touches our own 
times so closely and whose incidents are familiar to 
many, it is better to avoid personal description and 
allow the plain narrative of a soldier's service to tell 
its own tale. Yet no life of this type of officer would 
be complete which omitted to give some idea of his 
character and personality, inasmuch as it was through 
them that he achieved success. 

His short, brilliant career was not the outcome of 
lucky chance or outside influences : each step in rank, 
every decoration, was the reward of hard work and 
steady efficiency, tested in the only adequate way — 
on active service under various commanders and in 
various places. With him there were no spasmodic 
efforts with alternate fits of idleness and energy : 
from boyhood the trend of his life was even ; he 
worked because it was his nature to work, and he 
worked well because it was not in him to do things by 
halves. His diary, begun at the age of lifteen while 
at Eton and continued without the break of a day 
until his death, gives an insight into his consistency 
of purpose and a clue to his character such as no other 
record could convey. Indeed, the zeal with which 
he played and worked and the variety of his employ- 
ments are sometimes bewildering, though he himself 
obviously regarded them as a matter of course. Some 
men have a craving for physical exercise which turns 
their existence into a round of drudgery and their 
minds into narrow grooves, without contributing to 
their happiness ; others are much tied to indoor 
pursuits, but Seymour never made " heavy weather " 
over anything he undertook. His happy nature 
prompted him to do things without expecting reward 
or striving after effect ; work was as congenial as 
play, play as absorbing as work, so much so that 



EARLY LIFE 3 

one is led to inquire what he himself reckoned as 
leisure ? 

I recollect well that in 1898 he took over command of 
the depot of my battalion at Omdurman, whilst it was 
absent on an expedition in which Vandeleur would 
have been delighted to join; it was, in fact, escorting 
Major Marchand and his French " mission " from 
Fashoda to the Abyssinian border. Meanwhile, work 
at the depot entailed the drilhng of Sudanese recruits 
and a goodly dose of what may be termed the drudgery 
of soldiering. Yet so heartily did he do it, though 
actually an officer of another corps, that long after 
he left the native officers and men would ask affec- 
tionately after Bimbashi Vandeleur, and he would 
write and inquire about them ; moreover, the sound 
work he put into some 400 recruits was amply tested 
when they subsequently joined for duty. It was this 
power of throwing himself heart and soul into what 
he was doing that made him a delightful companion 
on service and a refreshing contrast to those who have 
a habit of grumbhng from the beginning to the end of 
every campaign. His sense of humour and cheerful 
pluck forebade him to indulge in the privilege of many 
good Britishers — namely " to grouse." Truly, thirty- 
two years of such a hfe were worth more both to himself 
and to those who loved him than the three-score and 
ten allotted to some of us. 

To return to his early years. Seymour at ten 
began school hfe at Farnborough in the private estab- 
lishment of the Rev. A. Morton. Three years later 
he went to Eton, to the Rev. Edmund Warre's house, 
and on Dr. Warre succeeding to the headmastership, 
Seymour was transferred with others to the house of 
the Rev. Stewart Donaldson, Mr. Impey being his 
classical tutor. At Eton he seems to have been 



4 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

thoroughly happy without entirely wasting his time. 
Boys like him of energetic, manly tastes enjoy to the 
full the varied occupations and interests of a big 
school, and are popular with masters and boys 
alike. In fact, he was just the sort of boy for Eton, 
possessing sufficient strength of character to avoid 
being spoiled, yet worthy alike of its traditions and 
associations. 

Nevertheless, a careful study of his life does not 
enable one to attribute his advancement to the training 
or instruction he received at school, and the fact that 
he was a public-school boy — as are most men of his 
class — cannot be cited in favour of our system of educat- 
ing average boys. Great Britain is apparently enter- 
ing on a period of strenuous competition in all spheres 
of enterprise and in all parts of the world, and it is 
questionable whether the traditional education which 
until now has qualified Enghshmen to compete with 
other Englishmen, will in future enable them also to 
compete with better equipped Americans and Germans. 
Our public-schools are not merely or even chiefly 
" seats of learning," but surely the hours allotted to 
study might at least be devoted to some useful purpose. 
As to what is or is not useful, I would merely remark — 
with the respect due to our appointed teachers — that 
neither headmasters nor their assistants are really 
qualified judges. They conscientiously teach up to 
the standard in vogue, but even within its narrow 
limits they are never taught the difficult art of impart- 
ing elementary instruction. They are usually public- 
school boys, nurtured on the old curriculum. From 
school they pass through a university and take a 
degree, after which they settle down for life to educate 
boys for the various professions. I have no desire to 
criticise individuals or a class, but can it be truthfully 



EARLY LIFE 5 

said that our slip-shod plan of selecting and training 
schoolmasters does provide a suitable education for the 
soldiers, lawyers, business-men, pohticians, and civil- 
servants of the British Empire ? 

In truth, we have none of us received at school any 
sohd groundwork of practical instruction, and those 
who desire to acquaint themselves with the world 
in which they hve have to pick up the elements of 
history, geography and money matters after their 
school-days are over. By this method we usually 
remain amateurs in all the walks of hfe, unaccustomed 
to sustained mental effort and constantly displaying 
ignorance of rudimentary facts. 

Our public schools, enthroned amidst the traditions 
of past centuries, form each a society, a Httle world 
of its own, in which the social grades, the unwritten 
laws, the standards of public opinion are preserved 
and upheld with the enthusiasm of youth. The result 
is in many ways excellent, producing a high standard 
of honour as between boy and boy, an innate sense of 
justice, fair play and straight dealing, an esprit de 
corps and a self-sacrifice for the common good, which 
have richly endowed EngUshmen in all parts of the 
world. Such advantages are not hghtly to be bartered 
in exchange for mere knowledge ; but the drawback 
Hes in the fact that the school world is exclusive, that, 
instead of being a means to an end, a threshold across 
which to enter upon Hfe, it degenerates into being an 
end in itself. Many boys, and parents too, consider 
school success in work or games as the ne phis ultra 
of ambition and those who obtain it are surrounded 
with so transcendant a glory, that they may well 
beheve themselves absolved from further effort. They 
feel they can never be such " swells " again and are 
content to rest on a past which ended at nineteen. 



6 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Who has not kno^^'n several such in his school-davs ? 
Brilhant demi-gods, whose after-Hfe has been marked 
by no ambition, whose abihties have never hfted them 
above obscurity ? On the average boy, too, school 
opinion makes a lasting impression, and he uncon- 
sciously models himself on the lines thus laid down. 
In our youth the best, the only thing was to be a 
"public-school boy," and we remain public-school boys 
all our days. Look where you will, in the Army, in 
Parliament, in the leading professions, in our railways, 
and in our business houses, you will see a number of 
excellent amateurs struggling ineftectually with techni- 
cal problems. They make admirable subordinates and 
shine most especialh^ in their behaviour to native 
populations in India, the Sudan, Egypt and other places. 
But when it becomes necessary to excel in a particu- 
lar line, to go one better, to get out of a groove and be 
something of a specialist, the Englishman is disinclined 
to leave the beaten track. Such ideas were dis- 
countenanced in the old school-da^^s as cranky and 
tending to divide a boy from his fellows. He was 
trained to be a gentleman, not an expert, and it does 
not occur to him to try to be both. IMoreover, he 
lacks the necessary groundwork of modern history, 
languages, geography and science, which are painfully 
acquired after the age of twenty-live. So he sticks 
to the school standard which was good enough for him 
and his compeers. Thus it comes to pass that 
mediocrity, if it but bear the accepted hall-mark, 
passes muster amongst us and is promoted to positions 
which demand capacity and special training. There 
are of course exceptions ; men endowed with a 
strength of character which breaks through tradition. 
Such was Seymour \'andeleur, who became prominent 
amongst his contemporaries not by reason of his public- 



EARLY LIFE 7 

school training, but independently and perhaps in 
spite of it. 

Be this as it may, Seymour threw himself with 
energy into the hfe at Eton. He elected to be a 
" dry bob," and was indefatigable, according to the 
season of the year, at fives, cricket, and football, all 
of which he played for his house. The diary contains 
regular accounts of runs with the beagles and the sport 
they showed. He was a keen volunteer, being pro- 
moted sergeant in 1886, and complains with sadness 
of the poor attendance of the corps at field-days ; in 
fact, it was not then the fashion to be a volunteer. 
He represented the school at rifle shooting as one of 
the members of the team. His vigour at games and 
cheerfulness on all occasions made him many friends, 
several of whom passed into Sandhurst and joined tlie 
Brigade of Guards with him. He was steady at book- 
work, devoting fixed hours every day to " extras," 
and consequently passed straight from Eton into Sand- 
hurst — fifty-second out of ninety candidates — without 
going to any crammer. He was fond of reading, 
especially military books, and naturally quick at pick- 
ing up foreign languages in spite of inadequate school 
teaching. His hohdays were often spent in France, 
and he took regular lessons from a Monsieur Cauvet, 
who taught him enough French to enable him to enjoy 
plays at the Theatre Fran9ais — no mean test. At 
Dinard he took to sketching, a subject in which he was 
afterwards most proficient. In Switzerland we find 
him mountaineering ; and, as all pursuits were entered 
into with enthusiasm and were encouraged by a father 
and a mother who devoted themselves to his hohdays, he 
entered the Royal Mihtary College (Sandhurst) on Sep- 
tember 1, 1887, with a larger stock of special and general 
information than is usually found in our boys of eighteen. 



8 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

The practical work at Sandhurst, particularly the 
surveying and military sketching, was congenial, and 
at the end of one year he passed out forty-fourth out 
of 138, with special certificates in topography and 
riding. From Sandhurst, too, dates his first acquaint- 
ance with polo which ever afterwards remained his 
favourite amusement. He played it wherever he 
went, often in places where it had never been seen 
before, such as Uganda, Nigeria and parts of the Sudan, 
and when he could not get enough players for a game, 
he would spend an hour knocking a ball about alone. 
Within a few weeks of his first handling a polo club 
we find him playing for Sandhurst against the i8th 
Hussars and getting handsomely defeated in the 
attempt. But he soon developed a better game 
and ended by playing in many first-class matches at 
Hurlingham. 

After Sandhurst, a happy spell of shooting and 
hunting at Apley, his grandfather's place in Shropshire, 
occupied him till February, 1889, when he joined the 
2nd Battahon Scots Guards in Dubhn, as a second 
lieutenant. Now, there is a certain amount of mis- 
conception prevalent regarding the so-called ordeal 
of joining a regiment ; but it is in no sense a formidable 
undertaking, as those who have had to go through 
with it are well aware. A self-conscious boy who is 
just beginning to be a man no doubt feels shy and 
awkward, but this soon wears off, and my civihan 
readers should dismiss from their minds any phantom 
horrors which may have been conjured up. The 
truth is, that the standard of general conduct and 
military efficiency amongst the captains and subalterns 
of the British Army is a high one ; in none is it higher 
than in the Brigade of Guards ; and one purpose of 
this memoir will be amply fulfilled if it should succeed 



EARLY LIFE 9 

in doing justice to a body of officers of whom Vandeleur 
was but a type. All ranks have recently been assailed 
by floods of amateur criticism, excusable and useful 
as regards certain regrettable incidents in the conduct 
of military affairs ; for the Army, like the nation, has 
for years been run on amateur lines, the product of 
our amateur schools, and will continue to be so run 
until we " enter " boys as military cadets on some plan 
similar to that recently adopted by the Admiralty. 
But meanwhile, amidst the welter of indiscriminate 
fault-finding, it is satisfactory to recognise that no 
case has been established against the junior officers, 
captains and subalterns, in actual command of men in 
the field. The regimental officer was highly tested 
in the late war ; he was not found wanting ; and his 
men relied on him with confidence. 

This good result, if closely examined, must chiefly 
be attributed to the efficiency of the regimental system, 
which is based less upon official regulations than upon 
time-honoured traditions of duty and conduct. 
Through long periods of peace and short periods of 
war, in the various climates and garrisons of the 
British Empire a high standard has been maintained, 
not by repeating copybook maxims and attending to 
grandmotherly effusions in the press, but by a system 
of discipline which has had the merit of being effective 
in its results. It is based upon a sound moral code 
amongst the officers, handed down from generation 
to generation, a code to which the newly-joined 
subaltern must learn to conform. As a rule he is only 
too anxious to do so and be admitted to full member- 
ship of the society of his brother officers, for the un- 
written laws of a mess are no hardship to a manly 
young fellow. A certain number of boys are, however, 
thrust into the Army without regard to their suit- 



10 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

ability or qualifications for soldiering, and some 
parents seem to think that the regimental code should 
be modified in order to admit these square pegs into 
round holes. For, strange as it may seem to those 
who imagine that any youth will become a good officer, 
I venture to say there are some temperaments to 
whom it is positively wicked to entrust the hves of 
good soldiers. Such men may be endowed with first- 
rate ability for other work, though there is no use 
for them in the Army, and it would certainly be a 
kindness to remove them whilst still young to more 
suitable spheres of occupation ; but their relatives 
have endowed them with a so-called military educa- 
tion, have paid for a military uniform and wish to 
keep them in the Army, unless some serious offence 
can be proved against them. Unfortunately, it is 
extremely difficult to frame a specific charge against 
a young officer who is not by nature suited to com- 
mand even a corporal's guard ; and if several such 
should congregate in a battalion, they form a coterie 
amongst themselves, a clique of dissentients which 
holds itself aloof from the accepted code and is 
thoroughly bad for the discipline of the corps. Perhaps 
the commanding officer, if he be a good judge of boys 
and an exceptionally strong man, may be able to get 
rid of the nuisance through the official channel ; but 
he will find it no easy task unless he be supported by 
his superiors and protected from public annoyance 
by the inefficient boy's relatives. 

Surely, when we realise the general advantages of 
permitting officers to enforce their own standard of 
conduct and recollect how rarely they have abused 
this privilege, we are led to the conclusion that, instead 
of endeavouring to curtail their power of ejecting black 
sheep, we should, in our wisdom, confer on regimental 



EARLY LIFE ii 

officers increased and authorised facilities for eliminat- 
ing those who are unable to command the respect of 
their men. 

To Seymour Vandeleur at any rate, joining the 
Scots Guards was an unmixed pleasure. He found 
his Sandhurst friend, Cecil Lowther, just arrived, and 
ten days later we find him installed at the Commanding 
Officer's whist-table, an unheard-of proceeding in any 
Continental army, yet a sufficient illustration of the 
tone which pervades a good British battalion. During 
the next five years he stuck closely to regimental duty 
in Dublin, London, Pirbright and Windsor, and 
reahsed that soldiering in these desirable quarters 
entailed a deal of hard work ; for, during the first 
three years of his service, an officer of the Guards is 
kept steadily at duty without any relaxation in the 
form of leave. The theory is that youth is the age for 
education and improvement, but also the age in which 
slovenly habits are easily acquired and perpetuated. 
Consequently the youngest officers, without exception, 
are taught all they can be taught and given no oppor- 
tunities of being slack, either on or off duty. They 
are kept continuously busy under the supervision of 
the adjutant from early morn till late in the afternoon, 
in the hope that the groove of doing their work 
thoroughly and energetically may be persevered in 
afterwards — an expectation which is fulfilled or not 
according to the disposition of the individual. Shirk- 
ing and loafing are alike tabooed. 

When Vandeleur joined, Colonel the Hon. J. 
Vanneck was commanding officer and Mr. Erskine 
adjutant, of the 2nd Battahon Scots Guards. Attached 
to the Left Flank company in February, Seymour 
passed in company drill in March and entered on his 
daily round of duty, going on guard at the Castle, 



12 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

coming off guard to do a picquet, attending three 
battalion parades daily and gradually learning the 
interior economy of his company. June and July were 
spent at musketry in the Curragh Camp ; in September 
the battahon moved to Chelsea Barracks, London ; 
and Vandeleur went on the Queen's Guard at St. 
James's Palace for the first time — always a memorable 
episode in a young Guardsman's soldiering, but one 
which loses its charm after a four months' spell of 
winter guard-mounting has entailed two nights out of 
bed in each week — the intervening days being lilled 
in with picquets, drills, winter schemes, war games, 
route-marches, lectures, judging distance practices 
and " shouting " drill. A month of duty at the 
Depot (Caterham) under Major Crabbe completed his 
first year of service, during which his main relaxation 
had been an occasional game of racquets at Prince's 
Club. 

Owing to his proficiency in military mapmaking, 
he was selected to instruct a class of non-commissioned 
officers in topography, and the first months of 1890 
were spent at this work, usually on Epsom Downs, at 
a season of the year when they can scarcely be called 
a popular resort. In March he rode in the winning 
team of the Brigade of Guards point-to-point race, 
and during next summer enjoyed a full polo season 
at Hurhngham, being now of a calibre to play in first- 
class matches and with such crack players as the three 
Peats, Toby Rawlinson, Lord Harrington, John 
Watson, Major Peters and others. It was his habit 
to buy ponies more or less in the rough, train them 
to the game with infinite care and trouble, and with 
excellent results. There were other and more excep- 
tional amusements this summer, such as an ascent 
in a balloon from the Military Exhibition with Lord 



EARLY LIFE 13 

Edward Cecil, of the Grenadiers, but the diary gives no 
details of this expedition save that the balloon de- 
scended harmlessly in a field near Chelmsford, and that 
the half share of the costs amounted to £5 15s. 

In August ensued the usual musketry course at 
Pirbright Camp, after which the 2nd Battahon Scots 
Guards moved to Windsor and Seymour obtained five 
days' leave, his first hoHday, every moment of which 
was devoted to cub-hunting and partridge shooting. 
Windsor offers facilities for a good deal of sport of a 
kind, what with the Household Brigade Drag (to 
which he occasionally acted as whip and had the usual 
quota of falls), Mr. Garth's foxhounds, and the Queen's 
staghounds, now suppressed ; but the winter of 1890 
was unusually severe, the Thames being frozen over 
for weeks, so skating took the place of hunting, and 
the long days on guard at the Castle were spent in the 
splendid library to which the officers have access. 

The summer of 1891 saw a new departure in Vande- 
leur's military hfe, as he was selected to be trained at 
Aldershot in the newly formed (provisional) Mounted 
Infantry Regiment for three months, under Lieutenant- 
Colonel (now General Sir Edward) Hutton ; he was 
attached to the company composed of the Black 
Watch, Seaforth, Cameron and Gordon Highlanders, 
and amongst other officers in the regiment may be 
mentioned poor Roddy Owen, who afterwards died 
on service in the Dongola Expedition, and Mr. (now 
Lieutenant-Colonel) Jenner, D.S.O. Here he was 
kept busier than ever at Mounted Infantry work in 
the camp at Bourley Bottom, scouting, long field days 
and autumn manoeuvres, and it was always a satis- 
faction to him to recollect, when employed during the 
South African War in General Hutton's Mounted 
Infantry Brigade, that he was in the first batch of 



14 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

officers thus trained, and Sir Edward has several times 
expressed the very high opinion he entertained of 
Seymour Vandeleur. 

Seymour was promoted Lieutenant in May 1892, 
and was then ordered to go through the School of 
Musketry at Hythe, where he spent most of the 
summer and passed out with a special certificate. 
Taking time by the forelock, and as though conscious 
that future years would find him fully occupied, he 
at once set to work to pass the examination for pro- 
motion to the rank of captain and devoted a portion 
of his winter leave to the necessary book- work. He 
managed, however, during the autumn to attend the 
cavalry manoeuvres at Frensham. 

The year 1893 witnessed an ever-increasing desire 
to learn about things in general and to acquire the 
most varied accomplishments. Often in the course 
of a single afternoon we discover Seymour passing 
through the hands of three instructors ; Peall, the 
great professional, gave him bilhard lessons ; Saunders 
of Prince's Club taught him tennis ; a corporal of 
the Scots Guards band gave him flute lessons ; he 
spent a month in Berhn with a tutor to brush up 
colloquial German and then competed for an inter- 
preter's certificate ; and no sooner was this examina- 
tion completed than we see him tackling Spanish 
with a Signor Veda. Meanwhile, May was spent at 
Aldershot undergoing a veterinary class and examina- 
tion. As all this extra work was undertaken in addition 
to his regimental duty, we get a glimpse of Seymour's 
firm resolve to qualify himself for whatever might be 
required of him. 

August and September were taken up with man- 
oeuvres on a somewhat larger scale than had previously 
been attempted, and a complete Guards brigade of four 



TAHIKACON. VANDELEUKS HOME ON THE SHANNON. 

IRELAND 



EARLY LIFE 15 

battalions assembled at Frensham and operated on 
Swanley Downs where, at the termination of hostilities, 
15,000 men marched past Field-Marshal H.R.H. the 
Duke of Connaught. 

By this time a long-cherished plan had matured 
itself in the minds of the two friends, Cecil Lowther 
and Seymour Vandeleur, and they obtained four 
months' leave of absence to travel in Somaliland and 
shoot big game. Rarely were two companions more 
suited to such an enterprise or more worthy of its 
pleasures and opportunities. To Seymour it meant 
more than a mere shooting trip, for he had made up 
his mind not only to penetrate beyond the explored 
country, but also to map the whole route ; he con- 
sequently prepared himself for this work by taking 
a course of lessons in the use of the sextant at the 
Royal Geographical Society, and so greatly did 
he profit by this instruction that on his return he 
presented a map to the society, which is still the 
main source of information for that part of Somali- 
land. 

The friends quitted London on December i, 1893, 
en route for the Dark Continent, which was, with brief 
intervals, to absorb the remainder of Seymour's life. 
Travelling as rapidly as possible via Paris, Marseilles, 
Port Said and Suez, they disembarked at Aden on 
December 13. Here Lowther waited in order to 
purchase provisions and bring on the baggage which 
had started by the all-sea route, whilst Vandeleur 
embarked on a coasting steamboat for Berbera (the 
capital of British Somaliland) where be began to 
organise a camel caravan for the march into the interior. 
Big changes, as we know, have been wrought in 
Eastern lands since Europeans first discovered India, 
but one reform has never been accomphshed, namely, 



i6 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

to instil activity into stray native retainers. They 
regard energy as a palpable blot on the character of 
the white man and treat it with amiable tolerance. 
Lowther found the same notion prevalent in Aden, 
so they both learned the necessity of patience in Eastern 
travel and the insufficiency of fotu^ months' leave. 
The latter they providcnl for by telegraphing home for 
an extra month. 

At last, on January 5, ICS94, all was ready, and the 
caravan of thirty camels, four ponies, two donkeys, 
four sheep and twenty-seven men set out for the 
intcMMor, across a barren desert called the Hand.* 

The nineteen days' march from the coast can be 
described in a few lines. The great charm of the journey 
lay in its absolute^ isolation from anything resembling 
a beaten (rack and the delightful uncertainty of what 
might he in front. Each day presented fresh problems, 
yet every detail had to be arranged without advice 
from (^x]XMienced hands. The tourist in Europe, 
who fusses with telegrams to hotels to have his bed- 
room it^ained and his dinner ordered, has no more 
notion of llu^ real j">leasures of travel than a cuckoo 
understands the rearing of a nest of young birds. 
Hut a traveller with an African caravan learns and 
enjoys many things. After a cool night, the early 
rise, tlu^ bustle of packing tents and provisions on 
unwilling camels, the hurried breakfast in the dark, 
these unavoidable troubles vanish directly he mounts 
his pony and rides forth in the delicious atmosphere 
of Africa's early morn. Dawn has appeared, nature is 
awakening, freshness is in the air and a hundred 
buzzings and cooings proclaim the rising sun. Indeed, 
'tis good to make the most of his rising, for by noon 
he will have sulxlued us all, man, beast, trees, convert- 

* See map facing page 24. 



EARLY LIFE 17 

ing nature into a sort of brazen image of stifled life 
till evening. 

Vandeleur and Lowther, during the daily march, 
scoured the country on both Hanks for game and 
bagged some koodoo, oryx and dig-dig — the latter 
a pretty little animal like a miniatures d(M;r. Thus they 
hardened themselves for future work and accustomed 
themselves to the ways of their resp(K:tive shikaris. 
The natives they m(^t with were friendly but in dire 
distress, owing to the lateness of tins rains and the 
frequency of Abyssinian raids from across the border ; 
and as the caravan pushed further inland the servants 
became somewhat alarmed, and the cook even sug- 
gested he should be served out with a gun on the line 
of march, " because he did not wish to be like a woman, 
without a weapon." His whim was not gratilied, and 
he was requested to devote more attention to tlie menu, 
of which the following is a common sample : 

Diner du Tour. 

. .. t J 

Potage — Koodoo . 

Poisson — Sardines frites. 

Rol — Boeuf corn6 (corned). 

Entremet — Cabin Biscuit 4 1' apricot jam. 

Crossing the Hand entailed five days' marching with 
water carried on camels ; the country consisted of a 
** wilderness of small trees and thorn bushes, followed 
by eight miles of open ])lain without a vestige of any- 
thing on it but stones, and then again the same wilder- 
ness of bushes ; and it will give you some idea of the 
sort of country if I mention that, when we reached 
the watering-place, only four camels could be watered 
every hour, as water did not trickle through the sand 
any faster." 

However, when they got to the Awari pools they 

B 



i8 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

found them deep and full of water, and consequently 
the resort of game from the drier districts in the neigh- 
bourhood. In fact, on the very night of their arrival 
a lion was heard roaring close to the zariba and tents 
at 2 A.M., and was actually seen in an open space 
on its way to water. Intense excitement prevailed 
amongst the men and camels and at daybreak Lowther 
and Vandeleur started off on its tracks. 

" After walking three hours through wooded 
country, checking at two or three bits of high grass 
and brush, Nur (my shikari) and I were going through 
a thick place, when we suddenly saw him thirty yards 
to our left, looking at us. It took me a little time to 
make sure of my aim, as the undergrowth was thick 
and he was exactly the colour of the grass. I fired 
with the .500 bore, and the bullet went in under his 
eye, smashing up the left side of his head. He turned 
over and I think this bullet really was enough. How- 
ever, he made such a row I fired again, breaking his 
neck. Lowther was about 150 yards to my left and 
had rather an exciting moment, as he could not see 
anything, though he heard the animal in the grass 
after I shot. It was a really splendid male with lovely 
mane, and our guide, the son of a local sheik, says this 
particular lion has been well known for a long time in 
the district, and has killed thirty-four natives, including 
one of his relatives. It measures just under ten feet 
from end of tail to nose, and I am quite satisfied at 
having come now, whatever else I may get or not, as 
one might come year after year and not get one hke 
him." 

This was his first hon, and the above is an extract 
from a letter written home the same day. To celebrate 
the occasion they split a bottle — no, a pint of cham- 



EARLY LIFE 19 

pagne at the evening meal. Again on January 28, 
he wrote : 

" This was a record day altogether. I left camp 
at six and walked north-west for two hours and then 
got on to some fresh rhinoceros tracks, which I followed 
up for nearly five hours, sometimes going very fast 
over open ground, and then creeping silently through 
dense jungle. (I must first tell you that these rhi- 
noceros feed at night, travelling immense distances, 
and hide and sleep during the day in thick dark places 
in the jungle, making their way through it in an 
astonishing manner.) At length we heard a rustling, 
and there stood two of them, under a tree, not thirty 
yards off ! I fired with the ten-bore, and away they 
went like lightning. We ran three or four hundred 
yards as fast as we could, blood being visible on the 
ground ; and, after going through some high grass, 
there they were to my delight, standing in the open. 
I fired at the wounded one and was glad to see him 
sink gradually on his knees and turn over. I now 
noticed the other was much smaller and should have 
let him off, but he turned nastily on me and, being too 
big to be a pleasant customer, had to be settled too. 
The first one turned out to be a ' whopper,' with splendid 
tusk, so I sent a pony for camels and carried his head 
into camp, and you shall judge of his size for yourself 
when we return. It is a great piece of luck, as it is 
generally very difficult to get near them. On reaching 
camp I found Lowther returned with two lionesses, 
which he had tracked for some distance southwards 
and shot with success. The excitement in camp at 
night was great ; the men had a sort of war dance, 
whilst we split another pint." 

It will not be necessary to follow day by day the 



20 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

indefatigable and enthusiastic sportsmen during the 
ups and downs of their month in this district, nor to 
enter into the details of their bag, which totalled four 
rhinoceros, seven lions and numerous smaller game. 
After several failures, they found the plan of sitting 
up for lions at night in a tiny zariba near a tied-up 
donkey an unprofitable amusement, owing to the 
nmnerous hyaenas and swarms of mosquitos. In fact, 
so accustomed were they to the fruitless results of these 
night watches that, on one dark night when Lowther 
was really visited by five lions, he mistook them for 
hyaenas and drove them away with stones and bad 
language ! After this they gave up the tied donkey, 
so dear to the heart of native sportsmen, and stalked 
their game in broad daylight over miles and miles of 
country, through thick bush and jungle and over 
scrub-covered plains. 

Towards the end of February they were contem- 
plating a speedy return to civilisation when they 
received news from the coast that a reply to their 
telegram for more leave had arrived, and an extension 
to April 30 had been granted. This meant another 
month of shooting in the best of the season, and great 
was their joy thereat. Their stay in the Awari and 
Milmil districts had been interesting from other points 
of view than shooting — especially as at that time the 
country was supposed to be under British jurisdiction. 
The inhabitants were far from being in the enjoyment 
of Pax Britannica, and were at the mercy of alternate 
parties of Abyssinian and Ogaden SomaU raiders. 
The latter numbered about 300, and spent their time 
looting camels and kiUing any villagers who resisted 
their depredations. The Sheik of Milmil held a diffi- 
cult *' official " situation. He represented the British 
Government, but was also in the pay of the Abyssinia ns 



EARLY LIFE 21 

for whom he levied tribute and collected sheep from 
the members of his own tribe, and thus robbed his 
people for the benefit of strangers and himself. Raids 
and inter-tribal warfare were so prevalent that sheep 
and camels were becoming scarce, so men were sub- 
stituted in their stead, and the prisoners captured 
were held up to ransom. In former days the tariff 
for one man's ransom had been a hundred camels, 
but competition and scarcity had reduced the value 
of human life by about 90 per cent., and ten camels 
was now held to be a fair price. The unfortunate 
prisoners were chained in the villages till their tribe 
produced the equivalent in camels ; and, when the 
available chains were all in use, the following barbarous 
device was instituted to expedite matters. Strips of 
damp camel-hide were sewn tightly round a prisoner's 
legs just above the ankle, and, as the hide gradually 
dried up and contracted, the victim usually lost the 
use of his legs within about a month. This was not 
an edifying spectacle of the majesty of British law 
and order, but our prestige was sufficiently acknow- 
ledged to prevent Abyssinians and others from shooting 
at British officers. One night a party of four Abys- 
sinians (not hyaenas !) did surround Lowther, as he 
sat in a zariba waiting for lions, and things looked 
a bit nasty till they discovered they were deahng with 
a white man and quietly departed. Indeed, there 
occurred several minor incidents which required firm- 
ness and tact on the part of the young officers to 
prevent molestation. Yet, on the whole, they were 
well treated ; the meat of the animals they killed 
proved a great boon to some of the hungry inhabitants 
and frequently procured them a friendly reception. 

On quitting Milmil they preferred to trust their 
own observation rather than native reports, regarding 



22 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

localities for game and water and the distances to be 
traversed ; so they made up their minds to skirt the 
inner edge of the Hand in a north-westerly direction, 
and march on the Abyssinian hills in the neighbour- 
hood of Harar. They thus journeyed through a land 
inhabited by tribes who had never beheld a white 
man though nominally under British protection, and 
they received several applications for assistance against 
Abyssinian persecutors, which they wisely declined to 
entertain. Some years later the Haud and district 
south of it was handed over to King Menelik by the 
British Government. 

The country presented a totally different aspect 
as they ascended higher and higher up the southern 
spurs of the mountains, and the scenery in places was 
magnificent, with views away eastwards across an 
open plain to Jigjiga, northward over wooded hills 
towards Harar, and westward overlooking barren 
lands which extended to the foot of the mountains 
of Abyssinia. Turning gradually north and east they 
descended into the Jigjiga vale, after the commence- 
ment of the rains, and devoted many a lengthy tramp 
to the fresh elephant tracks which they struck but 
could make nothing of. The elephants were ap- 
parently traveUing rapidly through this country, and 
when an elephant is " making his point " he does not 
tarry by the wayside, so, as Seymour put it, " the 
covers were all drawn blank," except for lion, lesser 
koodoo and smaller game. 

It was now time to think of the return journey to 
the coast, and, on studying the map which he had 
carefully constructed from daily notes, Seymour 
decided to march straight for Hargeisa near the 
Khamsa district, thus completing a circle of several 
hundred miles' length round the northern Haud and 



EARLY LIFE 23 

into the interior. To his intense satisfaction on arriv- 
ing at Hargeisa he found his map* closed on this point 
almost without error, and was thus amply rewarded 
for the tedious work of marking up his daily course 
and taking correct noonday observations, in spite of 
the sun's high altitude. 

They received news at Hargeisa of a serious accident 
having befallen Lord Delamere, who, with his friend 
Mr. Mure, was shooting beyond the Hand. A wounded 
Hon charged him ; he missed it with both barrels ; 
and the brute seized his foot as he fell backwards. 
His two shikaris, with magnificent courage, hurled 
themselves on the hon's back, and distracted its atten- 
tion from Lord Delamere. Their devotion saved his 
hfe, but all three were severely mauled, though they 
afterwards completely recovered from their injuries. 
Reassured by a satisfactory message regarding this 
accident, our friends found time for several more days' 
shooting, and the following is Seymour's graphic 
account of their last exploit in Somahland : 

" Soon after marching from Arror to return to the 
coast we found tracks in the plain, and half a mile or 
so further on, whilst we were all walking together and 
not the least expecting it, a honess— the remaining 
Arror one— broke cover from some bush in front and 
made off. Lowther and I ran on as hard as we could : 
I saw him take a tremendous toss over a hole and land, 
digging his rifle into the ground. The pace was too 
good to stop to inquire, and he came on again at once. 
I think we must have covered four or five miles over 
the plain in the shortest time on record, the Honess 
being still some way in front. 

" My syce (groom) * Aden,' who had gone back for 

♦ His map is reproduced facing page 24. 



24 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

a pony, arrived at full gallop, taking one good cropper 
also ; he went on in front and rounded up the beast 
in some scrub most gallantly, all by himself on the 
pony, just before she reached cover the other side of 
the plain. She made for him no less than ten times. 
We heard him shouting at her and came up as quick 
as we could, Lowther on the right of the bushes and I 
on the left. I caught sight of her head in the bush 
and fired, missing her. She went off with a growl to 
the right, and Lowther had two or three shots, hitting 
her once high up in the shoulder. 

" I thought there were going to be ' ructions,* and, 
sure enough, out she came, and went straight for 
Lowther, and his two shikaris, who were standing in 
the open, sixty or seventy yards off. She did not see 
me, as I was behind a small bush, and passed me at 
about ten yards, going top speed. I did my best to stop 
her, but aimed a little too far in front and hit her in 
the shoulder, under Lowther' s shot. This did not hurt 
her much, though it made an awful mess of her shoulder, 
and must have stopped her spring. On she went, 
straight for Lowther, but he stepped aside into a thorn 
bush, and killed her dead with a shot in the spine just 
as she seized his second shikari by the wrist. It was 
lucky killing her on the spot. The shikari is not much 
injured. Nur and I were nearly shot by Lowther's 
other man, who blazed away several times through a 
cloud of dust after the lioness was dead." 

This dramatic incident fittingly closed the Somali- 
land shooting trip, during which the total bag com- 
prised thirteen lions, four rhinoceros, three big koodoo, 
thirteen lesser koodoo, five hartebeest and numerous 
oryx, aul, gerenuk and digdig. The expedition had 
also developed the spirit of self-reliance and initiative — 



t 



i 




EARLY LIFE 25 

both of them useful quahties in an officer. The map 
which Vandeleur compiled from his own data is repro- 
duced on the opposite page and, as the country traversed 
afterwards became the scene of some fighting with the 
Somaliland Mullah, the survey was of use some years 
later. Meanwhile the President of the Royal Geogra- 
phical Society was so well satisfied with the accuracy 
of the work that he wrote Vandeleur a letter of hearty 
congratulation and mentioned the circumstance in his 
annual address to the Society. 

The two young officers rejoined the Scots Guards 
for duty in April, but Vandeleur was so bitten with the 
life and opportunities which are granted to energetic 
men in Africa that he volunteered for a period of 
service with the Uganda Rifles. His application was 
granted, and on August 10, 1894, at the age of twenty- 
five, he set out from London on a career of usefulness 
which was to lead him over thousands of miles of the 
African continent and bring him distinction wherever 
he went. One of the secrets of his success was the care 
he took to study at the Royal Geographical Society's 
library the work of previous explorers and soldiers 
in each country he visited. He also took with him 
every obtainable book which treated of the problems 
he was to deal with, and read them on the journey out. 
In this way he acquired a remarkable knowledge of 
Africa, especially its geography and history, and then 
used his opportunities to supplement, instead of 
merely repeating, the experiences of others. 

On the same principle I propose to devote a chapter 
to the story of Uganda, before I introduce the reader 
to the duties which Vandeleur and others performed 
in that interesting kingdom. 



CHAPTER II 
THE STORY OF UGANDA 

See map facing page 66 

The country for which Seymour Vandeleur was now 
bound and in which he was to gain a first experience 
of active service, was, in 1894, a new province of the 
British Empire. Although much had been written 
about Uganda and East Africa in the newspapers 
and periodicals of the day, it was mostly of a contro- 
versial nature, for at that date our people were not alive 
to the necessity of British expansion on the African 
continent. Men's minds were being swayed by two 
diametrically opposed views, propounded respectively 
by the enterprising and the over-cautious ; those who 
had penetrated beyond the coast-line and seen for 
themselves the great possibilities of equatorial Africa 
endeavoured to persuade our politicians to undertake 
a forward movement ; whereas those who habitually 
stayed at home and conducted the ordinary affairs of 
the British Isles persuaded themselves and others to 
discredit all travellers' tales and to refuse ** supplies " 
for enterprises which might entail future responsibility. 
Several years were thus spent in hesitation, during 
which France and Germany were actively acquiring 
" colonies " which we had originally discovered : the 
average Cabinet Minister, of both pohtical parties, 
considered the African continent a " bore " and an 
interruption to the accepted game of party politics ; 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 27 

the average newspaper reader, confused by unfamiliar 
African names and by the heat engendered between 
rival controversalists, was unable to form a decided 
opinion. 

What was specially wanted by those who were 
inclined to consider an old problem from a new point 
of view was definite information regarding the climates, 
populations and products of these countries ; the 
controversalists were found to lay stress only on those 
points which best illustrated their particular arguments, 
and thus made it more difficult for a man who had 
never been in Africa to understand the problem. 

At that time Mr. Chamberlain had not yet initiated 
his countrymen into his statesmanlike policy of develop- 
ing backward dependencies on sound business lines. 
Nigeria was but a dim possibihty, an unrecognised 
Mohammedan Empire. A hostile South Africa 
threatened the very existence of Greater Britain. The 
British Empire itself had been but recently " dis- 
covered." But fortunately there appeared in 1892 the 
now well-known work, entitled "England in Egypt," 
by Sir Alfred Milner. This book ran into five editions 
in eighteen months and revealed to men of all parties 
how a bankrupt and undeveloped country had become 
prosperous and solvent under steady control by 
British officials. The facts and figures were so lucidly 
put, the difficulties encountered and the way they 
were overcome so fairly stated, that even partisans 
of the Little England school were bound to admit 
that Lord Cromer was accomplishing a great work on 
the banks of the Nile. From warm approval arose an 
honourable desire to persevere in the work and extend 
its benefits to the Sudan, and it thus gradually dawned 
on our minds that British rule could be a real blessing 
to African races, in spite of the drawback of our being 



28 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

obliged first to establish it with the aid of maxim 
guns. 

Now, the ancient kingdom of Uganda, at the time 
of Vandeleur's arrival, had not yet been blessed by 
the process of being " Egyptianised " [administered 
by native officials controlled by a handful of honest 
Englishmen], though that has since followed in due 
course. Nor was very much known about its history 
and general conditions except from the reports of ex- 
plorers, who hurried through the various territories of 
East Africa. But in the year 1902 appeared an admir- 
able work, " The Uganda Protectorate," by Sir Harry 
Johnston. From it and other sources I now propose 
to set forth such facts as may help the reader to an 
understanding of what had taken place in this province 
prior to the year 1894. We will, therefore, first embark 
on a short resumi of what is known of the native history 
and origin of the people, describe in a few words the 
work of the first white men who explored the country ; 
and then follow in detail the doings of Vandeleur 
during his year and a half in Uganda and Unyoro. 

The Protectorate lies around the northern shores 
of the Victoria Nyanza, and extends from them in a 
westerly and northerly direction to the Great Congo 
Forest, to Lake Albert, to the vast marshes south of 
Fashoda (Egyptian Sudan), and to the shores of Lake 
Rudolph, on the Abyssinian border. This region, 
which is governed from the administrative capital, 
Entebbe, on the Victoria Nyanza, contains a greater 
variety of climates and a more diversified landscape 
than are to be found in all the countries which adjoin 
the Mediterranean seaboard : it is inhabited by popu- 
lations who vary from one another in appearance, 
habits, language and spiritual development as greatly 
as vary the mountaineers of Switzerland and the peas- 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 29 

ants of Italy from the fishermen of Malta and the 
grandees of Spain, while animal and vegetable life 
is simply bewildering in its profusion. The mountains 
of Ruwenzori (20,000 ft. high) contain glaciers which 
rival those of the Alps ; the dismal swamps of the 
Nile Valley cover ten thousand square miles of land ; 
and between such extremes the type of inhabitant and 
species of plant is necessarily of the greatest variety. 
There are large areas within the temperate zone, at alti- 
tudes between six and seven thousand feet, where a mag- 
nificent country and healthy climate will some day afford 
a home to perhaps half a million white inhabitants from 
Europe; although the first settlers may suffer from 
fevers and other hardships, these will in course of time 
be overcome by industry and applied knowledge. For 
it may be fairly claimed as a scientific fact that the 
lengthened residence of white inhabitants tends to 
sanitate a virgin soil and banish injurious microbes 
from it : it is on record that fevers and agues were rife 
in Great Britain when this country was as undrained 
as are the uplands of Uganda ; and the experience of 
India has shown that whereas in the eighteenth century 
British soldiers died hke flies, in the nineteenth we 
maintained an army of 72,000 white men there in 
healthy conditions. 

Sir Harry Johnston* in his careful study of the 
natives (they beheld a white man for the first time in 
1862) gives cogent reasons for believing that the abo- 
riginal inhabitants were the pygmies, whose descend- 
ants still lurk in parts of the Great Congo Forest and 

♦ To readers who would investigate the numerous charms and 
drawbacks of a residence in Uganda, Sir H. Johnston's entertaining 
descriptions may be warmly recommended — see his " Uganda Protec- 
torate" (two vols.), published by Hutchinson & Co., Paternoster Row, 
in 1902, and profusely illustrated. 



30 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

other remote spots. These dwarfs appear to be as 
closely related to the chimpanzee monkey as it is 
possible for human beings to be, and the affinity is 
so far recognised by the chimpanzee of the present 
day that there are stories current of pygmy women 
being carried away by male monkeys and destroyed 
by their jealous wives. 

In course of time the original monkey-like pygmies 
were absorbed by intermarriage into a race of black 
people, which apparently spread itself over the whole 
of equatorial Africa. The theory is that these negroes 
were driven by famine and the encroaching sands of 
the Sahara desert from the north-west corner of the 
continent : and there is httle doubt that at a remote 
period of the past the Sahara was a fertile and thickly 
populated land, instead of the howling wilderness of 
sand which it has since become. But there are no 
indications by which we can compute even the approxi- 
mate date of this displacement of pygmies by negroes, 
and all that can be averred is that it must have occurred 
in the dim ages before the rise of Ancient Egypt. What 
is very interesting is that certain small colonies of 
pygmies have survived into the twentieth century, 
and that we have got into personal relations with them. 

The centuries succeeded one another, and in course 
of time Egypt and Abyssinia became the abode of a 
semi-white population of Caucasian extraction, which 
settled down amidst the local blacks and intermarried 
with them. A superior race was thus produced on 
the banks of the Nile, designated Ancient Egyptians, 
and in the mountains of Abyssinia, called Galas. By 
the light of recent research we are able to trace the 
liistory of the Ancient Egyptians back through sixty 
centuries from the present time, and there is evidence 
to show that the Galas, who still preserve a distinct 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 31 

nationality, are descended from the same stock. There 
is also good reason to believe that an offshoot of these 
Galas moved southwards to the Victoria Nyanza 
by way of Lake Rudolf, and settled themselves as 
masters over the mixed race of negroes and pygmies 
already alluded to. Such is the conjecture which may 
be hazarded as to the origin of the kingdom of Uganda 
and the aristocracy which rules it, and it may be 
interesting to mention here in a few words such evi- 
dence as is available to support the theory. On the 
Ancient Egyptian bas-reUefs are depicted a type of 
man which exactly resembles the pygmies already 
mentioned, and resembles no other Hving type : these 
same old bas-rehefs also reproduce the chimpanzees 
of equatorial Africa with marked fideUty ; and it is 
not assuming too much to suppose that the powerful 
dynasties, which ruled Egypt sixty centuries ago and 
under whose rule science and commerce flourished 
in a high degree, were capable of sending expeditions 
up the Nile in search of knowledge and trade. There 
is indeed no doubt that the builders of the Great Pyra- 
mids and Temples of Egypt were well acquainted with 
the Nile sources and with many other things which were 
rediscovered in the nineteenth century. At any rate 
the domestic animals and the few imported plants which 
now flourish in Uganda can be distinctly traced to 
Egyptian originals ; the remarkable long-horned cattle 
of the lake regions might have stood last year for their 
portraits on the Egyptian frescoes ; the musical 
instruments, especially the harps, of the Bahima 
aristocracy of Uganda, are exactly like those engraven 
on the ancient monuments : the idea of the " planked " 
canoe seems also to have been borrowed from the same 
source, in spite of the fact that the rivers and lakes of 
central Africa require boats of different construction 



32 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

to those employed on the Nile below Assouan ; and 
finally we can see for ourselves the close resemblance 
between the faces and complexions of the Bahima 
of Uganda and the present Fellaheen of Egypt, the type 
so accurately sculptured on the temples. 

In course of time the purer blooded Bahima women, 
perhaps owing to the change of climate, ceased to bear 
children, and the original Gala blood was grafted on 
the indigenous black stock. This blend of pygmy, 
negro and Gala evolved in course of time a race of men 
who organised Uganda and the adjacent States into 
powerful kingdoms. The race enjoyed a life of culture 
and progress in comparison with the existence of the 
naked folk around them — steeped in the degradations 
of the stone ages. The known genealogy of the Uganda 
sovereigns includes thirty-seven consecutive rulers, 
and we may fairly assume that the kingdom and its 
neighbours have been settled communities for over 
five centuries under dynasties of Gala origin. 

But though superior to their neighbours let it not 
be supposed that law and order predominated ; on 
the contrary, massacres of every sort were the rule 
rather than the exception, and it is quite likely that 
wliilst Agincourt (1415) was claiming a death-roll of 
over 11,000 men killed, an equally bloody though 
unrecorded battle may have been taking place between 
Uganda and Unyoro. Such contests were the rule 
with short intervals until Pax Britannica put a stop 
to them at the end of the nineteenth century. 

However, one sign of the superiority of the Baganda 
compared with their neighbours was their habit from 
time immemorial of clothing themselves in long 
garments made with great skill from the bark of the 
birch tree — an art which they must have acquired for 
themselves, as they had, up to 1850, no knowledge of 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 33 

the outer world beyond a vague legend of their Abys- 
sinian descent. To them the universe was comprised 
within the region bordered by the Great Congo Forest, 
the Nile marshlands, the heights of Mount Elgon, the 
Nandi and Mau plateaus, and Lake Tanganika ; nor 
had even a whisper of their existence reached Europe 
until after Queen Victoria had been twenty years on 
the throne. We now know that during the first half 
of the nineteenth century some enterprising Muskat 
Arabs traded in saihng-boats between British India 
and the Zanzibar coast ; that some of them pushed 
caravans into the interior in pursuit of new markets 
for their goods ; and that in this manner they dis- 
covered Lake Nyassa and the country of Unyamwezi — 
known to Herodotus (b.c. 450), by hearsay, as the Land 
of the Moon, now situated in German East Africa. The 
Arabs appear to have reached the south-eastern shores 
of the Victoria Nyanza during the forties and there 
heard rumours of negro kingdoms to the north but, 

" the first stranger from the outer world to penetrate 
into Uganda was a Beluch soldier from Zanzibar, 
named Isa, who fled from his creditors, first to the 
Arab trading settlements, and finally to the court of 
Suna, King of Uganda, where he arrived about 1849- 
1850. His handsome face and abundant hair and 
beard won him royal favour. Known as The Hairy 
One, he became a power in Uganda, and possessed a 
harem of three hundred women. Through Isa the 
Beluch, Uganda first heard of a world of Arabs and 
white men beyond their own borders. Suna sent word 
to the Arab traders inviting them to his court. Sheikh 
Snay bin Amir was the first to accept. In 1852 this 
Arab trader stood in the presence of the most powerful 
king of the best-organised East African State then 



34 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

existing, untouched by Arab or European influence. 
He remained some time with Suna, gave him much 
information about the world outside the Victoria 
Nyanza, and even beyond the coast of Africa. From 
him Suna and the Baganda had confirmation of the 
stories of Isa. They learned that there really were 
white men. The Bahima who had formed the aris- 
tocracies and dynasties of these regions remembered in 
their traditions a time when they were of much lighter 
complexion and of longer hair than they possessed 
since their lingering with the negresses of the subject 
races. They were much struck by these stories of 
white men, and regarded them as the stock from which 
they themselves had sprung. They therefore mani- 
fested a certain fear lest the white men from the lands 
of their forefathers might be coming to conquer these 
fertile countries from the grasp of their blackened 
descendants. Snay bin Amir brought back with him 
full accounts of this organised and civilised negro 
kingdom. This news spread rapidly amongst the 
trading Arabs of tlie Zanzibar hinterland, and came 
to the ears of the German missionary, Krapf, who with 
Rebmann was doing much to bring to our knowledge 
the names and features of inner East Africa."* 

In consequence of these reports Captain (afterwards 
Sir Richard) Burton proceeded to the discovery of 
Lake Tanganika, accompanied by Captain Speke ; 
and the latter, with more enterprise than Burton, 
headed an ill-equipped expedition and discovered the 
great lake which he named Victoria Nyanza. Speke 
at the same time gathered certain information about 
Uganda and Unyoro, which prompted him a few- 
years later, accompanied by Grant, to undertake a 

* " Uganda Protectorate." 



< 

N 
Z 



O 

o 

> 

w 
a: 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 35 

famous journey. They made their way without diffi- 
culty to the Victoria Nyanza, then round its western 
shore, and thus reached Uganda in 1862. Suna was 
dead and his son, Mutesa, had been five years on the 
throne. He received Speke and Grant with great 
cordiahty and took such a hvely interest in their 
desire to discover the sources of the Nile that he 
volunteered to show them the spot where that river 
issues out of the Victoria Nyanza at the Ripon Falls. 
This was accordingly done, and Speke was so favour- 
ably impressed by the hospitahty of the black king 
and the intelligence and veracity of the Baganda 
generally that he planned his further route upon the 
information they gave him. Subsequent exploration 
has confirmed what the Baganda told Speke, who 
followed the Nile downstream, cut off a bend of the 
river which otherwise would have led him into the 
Albert Nyanza, and reached Gondokoro without 
discovering that lake. There he met Baker and his 
plucky wife travelling in the opposite direction whilst 
he continued his homeward journey down the Nile 
to Khartoum. Speke seems throughout his travels 
to have possessed a happy gift of rightly understanding 
the geography of the areas he crossed, though critics 
declared he took too much for granted. His assump- 
tions were subjected to some destructive criticism, 
especially by his rival Burton, whose hostile pen 
reduced the Victoria Nyanza to an unwholesome 
marsh and supported Livingstone's wild theory of the 
sources of the Nile. So Speke was unrewarded by the 
British Government, though later research has re- 
established his reputation and private enterprise has 
erected a memorial to him in Hyde Park. His com- 
panion Grant was given a C.B. in recognition of some 
small services rendered in connection with the abortive 



36 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Abyssinian expedition, and a Knighthood was very 
properly bestowed on Baker, who discovered the lake 
which Speke just missed. 

Baker's explorations in Unyoro should be read at 
first hand in his fascinating volume " Ismaiha "; he and 
his wife were nearly killed by order of the king of that 
country, who was by no means so friendly as the 
Uganda king had shown himself to Speke and Grant. 
During the dozen years which followed the events 
just narrated European interest in the Nile sources 
was concentrated on Livingstone's theories and work 
in the Congo country. He clung obstinately to the 
idea that the sources of the River Congo were the 
sources of the Nile, and, after being gallantly rescued 
by the new explorer, Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Stanley, 
at once returned to Lake Bangweolo, where he died. 

The impression left on men's minds by the antago- 
nistic theories of Burton, Speke, Baker and Living- 
stone, was one of apathetic indifference until Stanley 
appeared on the scene. No one in the history of modern 
exploration in Africa has surpassed this great man 
in the qualities of courage, intelligence and tenacity 
of purpose ; and it is sincerely to be hoped that the 
petty controversies which for a time raged round his 
name are by now forgotten. We are gradually learning 
that the kid-gloved gentry who have so much to say 
about everything in these islands are not the sort who 
usually conduct great enterprises to successful issue 
in Africa or elsewhere ; and Stanley will be remem- 
bered for what he did, not for what was said of him. 
He was employed by the proprietors of the New York 
Herald and the London Daily Telegraph to solve the 
problems which were in doubt — was there really a 
Victoria Nyanza ? and, if so, did the Nile flow out of 
it ? Were there several lakes or only some marshes ? 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 37 

Were the headstreams of the Nile identical with those 
of the Congo ? Such were the questions which the 
two newspaper proprietors sent Stanley to solve, and 
he did solve them. That a geographical problem of 
such magnitude should be settled through the enter- 
prise of two daily newspapers is an honourable record 
in the history of journalism. 

Stanley followed Speke's old road through Unyam- 
wezi to the Victoria Nyanza, where he put together 
a boat and circumnavigated the inland sea. 

" In 1875 he reached Uganda, to be received by 
the same Mutesa who had received Speke.* Mutesa 
was puzzled about religious matters. Stanley's con- 
versations inclined him favourably towards Christianity. 
At this opportune moment there arrived in Uganda 
one of Gordon's messengers, or (if one may say so 
without unpleasantness) spies — Linant de Bellefonds, 
a Belgian, who in reality had come to see whether 
Uganda was worth the conquering, and whether it 
was too tough a job to tackle. Stanley resolved to 
write his famous letter to the Daily Telegraph inviting 
English missionaries to proceed to the evangelisation 
of Uganda. He had no means of sending this letter 
back to Europe save by way of the Nile, and Linant 
de Bellefonds volunteered to take it. As the unfortu- 
nate Belgian was travelling down the Nile in the vicinity 
of Gondokoro, his expedition was attacked by the 
Bari, who had suffered great wrongs at the hands of 
Nubian slave-traders. Linant de Bellefonds was 
murdered and his corpse thrown on the bank, to lie 
there rotting in the sun. An Egyptian expedition, 
sent to inquire into the cause of this attack and to 
punish the Bari, recovered Linant de Bellefonds' body, 



* ( 



• Uganda Protectorate." 



38 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

and removed therefrom the long knee-boots which he 
was wearing at the time of his death. In one of the 
boots — he had tucked it between boot and leg at the 
time of the attack — was found Stanley's famous letter 
to the missionaries. This was sent on to Gordon 
Pasha at Khartoum and forwarded by him to the 
Daily Telegraph, with an explanation of the circum- 
stances under which it had been found. 

" The letter, when published, met with an immediate 
response. Before many months were over (perhaps 
less than a year after Stanley had issued the appeal 
from far Uganda,) the first party of Anghcan mis- 
sionaries of the Church Missionary Society had started 
in two sections for Uganda. One half went by way of 
Zanzibar, the other went up the Nile. Both met in 
Uganda, and the establishments of the Church Mission- 
ary Society, which were destined after extraordinary 
vicissitudes to result in an immensely successful 
propaganda, commenced their work in 1877. Truly 
Stanley's letter, the blood-stained sheet of paper found 
in the boot of the murdered de Bellefonds, was big with 
fateful results for the kingdom of Uganda. 

" The excitement caused by this bold step on the 
part of the Anglican propaganda roused attention at 
Rome, or rather, struck the imagination and intelli- 
gence of a remarkable prelate of the Roman Catholic 
Church — Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) Lavigerie who, 
as Bishop of Algiers, had founded the Mission of the 
White Fathers, a body of ardent missionaries who 
were to imitate the Arabs in their dress, to lead in 
many respects an Arab hfe and thus convert Northern 
Africa and the inhabitants of the Sahara to the Chris- 
tian faith. The views of Cardinal Lavigerie were 
perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, as much political 
as rehgious, and he yearned to acquire fresh territory. 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 39 

not only for his Church, but for his own nation, France. 
Resolved that the British missionaries should not have 
it all their own way in Central Africa, he despatched 
his White Fathers to the Victoria Nyanza and Uganda 
on the one hand, to the Zanzibar coast and Tanganika 
on the other." 

The White Fathers of course came into rivalry, 
both rehgious and poUtical, with the Anghcan mission- 
aries already established, and on one occasion had a 
quarrel at Divine worship — when King Mutesa is 
reported to have exclaimed : " Go ! And, when you 
white men have decided on the true religion, it will be 
time enough to come and teach it to us." 

He died in 1884 and was succeeded by his son 
Mwanga, a youth of such vicious tastes that even the 
Mohammedans, who are not too particular, joined 
with the native Christians to expel him. Mwanga 
fled across the lake, took refuge with the White Fathers, 
declared himself a Catholic convert, and by this means 
regained his throne some years later. 

Meanwhile a more direct route from the coast was 
discovered by Joseph Thomson who, starting from 
Mombasa with an expedition organised by the Royal 
Geographical Society, made his way to the north-east 
corner of the Victoria Nyanza. He discovered the 
snow mountain Kenya, Lake Baringo and Mount 
Elgon and traversed the country through which the 
railway now runs. During these years Great Britain 
was fortunately represented at the Court of the Sultan 
of Zanzibar by Sir John Kirk, who was alive to the 
probable future value of the countries we are dealing 
with. He exerted his influence to keep the coast 
and its hinterland towards the great lakes open to 
Arab and British enterprise, although he was unable 



40 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

to remove the apathy which appears inherent in British 
Governments, he persuaded the Royal Society and 
British Association to combine to send a scientific 
expedition to Mount Kihmanjaro. This expedition 
was commanded by Mr. (now Sir Harry) Johnston, 
who conchided " treaties which very nearly brought 
the whole of that mountain within the British sphere 
and which at any rate were the basis from which the 
Imperial British East Africa Company sprang." 

By this time the partition of Africa amongst the 
great Powers of Europe was in full swing, and Great 
Britain, in spite of the enterprise of her sons in their 
individual capacity, was being left completely out of 
the scramble, because the politicians by whom we were 
ruled were unaware that foreign Governments had 
deliberately set to work to acquire and enclose vast 
slices of the continent. This is not the place to discuss 
the general policy of successive Governments on the 
question ; nor what might have been the result of 
more forethought on their part. The general impres- 
sion left on the mind of a student is that British 
Cabinets had no policy at all, but allowed matters to 
drift and muddle along until some influential news- 
paper vehemently goaded them into action. Then 
a spasmodic effort, usually too late, was made on behalf 
of our legitimate interests ; and thus Uganda, Nigeria, 
the Sudan, Nyassaland and the Transvaal each in 
turn, and each without due forethought, became for 
a brief period a " Vital British Interest." 

There were already many international jealousies 
regarding the allotment of East Africa. Our friends 
the Germans viewed with considerable jealousy any 
transference of the Egyptian Sudan or Uganda to 
the British sphere of influence. When Stanley was 
about to start on his famous journey in relief 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 41 

of Emin Pasha on the Upper Nile, the Germans 
positively refused permission for his expedition to pass 
through their territory. As the route via Mombasa 
and Uganda was at that time unsafe, Stanley was 
obliged to take the Congo route to Equatoria. He 
brought away Emin, discovered Ruwenzori and Lake 
Albert Edward and in a measure increased the British 
claims to consider these territories within a British 
sphere of influence : but his expedition suffered 
ghastly hardships in consequence of the German 
attitude. 

In June, 1890, an Anglo-German Convention fixed 
the boundaries of the respective spheres of influence, 
and the British East Africa Company, under Sir 
WilHam Mackinnon, pushed its officials inland to make 
treaties with the chiefs of the country within the 
British sphere. That a convention signed by the 
highest authorities in London and Berlin was necessary 
and timely will be denied by no one who has made 
himself acquainted with the incident of Dr. Karl 
Peters. He was a go-ahead German traveller, not 
employed by his Government, but ready for any enter- 
prise during his travels. In 1889 Mr. F. J. Jackson, 
an official, was to the north of the Victoria Nyanza 
engaged in negotiations with the King of Uganda 
regarding a British Protectorate. The negotiations 
came to nothing, so he went to Mount Elgon, leaving 
his standing camp and servants to await his return 
in the British sphere. Meanwhile a bundle of letters 
arrived for Mr. Jackson from the coast. At this 
juncture Dr. Karl Peters marched into the camp, 
obtained the letters, opened and read them, and at 
once determined to steal a march on Jackson by going 
himself to Uganda and forestalling the British Protec- 
torate over that country. He so far succeeded that 



42 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

he drew up a treaty with the aid of the French Cathohc 
priests and procured for Germany a Protectorate over 
Uganda. This treaty was afterwards disavowed by 
the German Government and had no effect. One 
does not blame the attempt of a German to secure a 
German Protectorate — an enterprise quite as defensible 
as the similar attempts of Enghshmen ; but that 
the opening and reading of another man's corre- 
spondence is unscrupulous, few will be found to deny. 
During the year 1890 Captain (now General Sir 
Frederick) Lugard went up as the accredited agent of 
the Company and most thoroughly did he justify his 
selection for the post. He was met on arrival in 
Uganda by a serious situation, needing firmness and 
promptitude to deal with it. The native government 
of the country was at a standstill, owing to the ini- 
quities of Mwanga. Civil war was raging between the 
Anghcans and Cathohcs, and this was further com- 
phcated by frequent incursions of Mohammedans. 
Lugard first ensured his position by arranging a treaty 
with Mwanga, declaring Uganda to be under the pro- 
tection of the Chartered Company. He then very 
wisely built a fort near the capital, and it was no sooner 
finished that it was attacked by Mwanga' s adherents. 
He repulsed this attack, but also realised that nothing 
could be done by him or any one else without a reliable 
mihtary force at his back. He therefore resolved on 
the bold project of proceeding to the west of Lake 
Albert and taking over all the remaining Sudanese 
soldiers of Emin's province. In this he was com- 
pletely successful, and obtained some 400 professional 
soldiers who were independent of local factions, and 
thus laid the foundation of the force which enabled 
us later on to start British rule in the country. These 
Sudanese became the Uganda Rifles which performed 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 43 

such useful service during a number of years and 
ultimately became merged into the King's African 
Rifles, lately on active service in Somaliland. By 
thus retrieving the scattered bands of Sudanese, under 
their own officers, Lugard imported an element of 
power which only needed careful control and judicious 
handling to be the effective instrument of civihsed 
government. To have left them to roam the country 
and prey upon its inhabitants would have produced 
great disorders in the near future, and the fact that 
these troops mutinied in 1897, under great provocation, 
should not detract from our appreciation of Lugard' s 
decision to employ them. He could do nothing 
without some military force : to have used the 
Protestant converts against the CathoUcs, or the 
Mohammedan Baganda against their Christian fellow 
countrymen, would have been a direct encouragement 
to civil war : and at the period we are considering 
it would not have been possible to transport an Indian 
battahon to the interior. It was Lugard who really 
made Uganda a possible British possession, and did 
it with inconceivably small resources. It is well to 
emphasise his feat, and to recollect that England does 
not always recognise the sons who serve her best. His 
personal influence over the natives had been such that 
when Mr. Grogan made his journey from the Cape 
to Cairo in 1899, he found he could get the natives 
of Toro to do anything for him because he knew 
Kapelh, the local name for Lugard. " They asked 
all kinds of questions about Kapelli, and wanted to 
know why he had never come back, and had the 
Enghsh deserted their country after promising to 
protect them ? To have left a name in Africa that 
opens all hearts is the finest monument to his exploits 
that a man can have." 



44 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Lugard was not only successful in laying the first 
firm foundation upon which a British administration 
of the country could be started ; but he also succeeded 
in the far more difficult task of persuading Mr. Glad- 
stone's Cabinet to consider the whole East African 
problem from an Imperial point of view. It is true 
that this Cabinet did not definitely establish a pro- 
tectorate ; but it refused to abandon what had been 
gained for the Empire, and consented to send out a 
Commission, under Sir Gerald Portal, to " report and 
advise." 

Now, the question really at stake, when shorn of 
its various side-issues, was whether the British Govern- 
ment or the Chartered Company should build a railway 
from the coast to the Victoria Nyanza ? for this railway 
must inevitably be built whether Uganda remained a 
commercial sphere of influence or became a protec- 
torate. To attempt to hold and administer on a 
permanent basis a country to which every load 
must be carried 800 miles on men's heads was out 
of the question ; in fact we shall see when we deal in 
detail with Vandeleur's work how hazardous the task 
was during the years the railway was in course of 
construction. 

Sir Gerald Portal's Commission of Inquiry practi- 
cally took over the government of Uganda ; Sir Gerald 
himself unfortunately died of typhoid, and Colonel 
(now Major-General Sir Henry) Col vile acted as Com- 
missioner and concluded the treaty which created the 
Uganda Protectorate. 

Meanwhile, the Chartered Company decided that 
it could not afford to build the railway ; it therefore 
announced its intention of surrendering its Charter 
and retiring from East Africa. After much hesitation 
and delay, the Imperial Government resolved to take 



THE STORY OF UGANDA 45 

over the country and construct the railway at British 
expense. Those of us who are convinced that in 
Uganda we have laid sohd foundations upon which 
in due time a great Negro State will arise, must applaud 
this decision ; the initial cost has been heavy for rail- 
way construction and civil and military adminstration 
and there is up to the present no return on the outlay ; 
in fact a further small annual expenditure by Great 
Britain will be necessary for ten years. The figures 
had better be faced, and they are faced by Sir Harry 
Johnston in his chapter on commercial prospects. 
He computes the total amount of money which will 
have been spent by the British taxpayer in East Africa 
and Uganda between the years 1894 and 191 1 at the 
round sum of £10,500,000. For this sum he is con- 
vinced that we shall have started a great Negro State, 
or a series of smaller Negro States on a self-supporting 
basis ; and he most properly urges that, as they 
become prosperous under our rule and through the 
agency of our railway, the capital sum expended on 
them should be consolidated into a national debt upon 
which interest should be paid to the mother country. 
If, as is quite hkely, both Uganda and East Africa 
develop into wealthy communities they could easily 
shoulder the debt which has been contracted on their 
behalf by Great Britain, and thus a great impetus 
will be given to the statesmanlike policy of pledging 
British credit to develop other backward possessions. 



CHAPTER III 
SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 

See map facing page 66 

The intention in the last chapter was to place before 
the reader some account of the chief events in the 
history of Uganda up to the moment when Lieutenant 
Seymour Vandeleur and other officers began their task 
on behalf of the British Government. Strictly speak- 
ing, the name " Uganda " belongs only to one of the 
dozen nations within our sphere in East Africa ; where- 
as ** Uganda Protectorate " is the official title of the 
several provinces (including Unyoro) which cluster 
around the shores of the great lakes. That part of the 
country through which the railway passes from the 
coast of the Indian Ocean to the Victoria Nyanza is 
called the " East African Protectorate." These two 
British protectorates are under separate administra- 
tions, now controlled by the Colonial Office in London. 
When Colonel Colvile was appointed Commissioner 
a certain number of young officers were selected to go 
out and command the Sudanese soldiery under him, 
and Seymour Vandeleur was one of them. He reached 
Mombasa on September 6, 1894, in company with 
Mr. Jackson and Captain Ashburnham, 6oth Rifles, 
The walls of the fort, thirty feet high and dating back 
to 1594, still mounted the ancient guns which remind 
the world of Portugal's adventurous colonists of the 
sixteenth century. A steam launch landed the party 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 47 

at a spot ten miles up the river, where they prepared 
for their eight hundred miles tramp to the Victoria 
Nyanza. It was the middle of the dry season and the 
necessity of carrying water for the caravan of four 
hundred porters for the journey across the Taru Desert 
added considerably to the difficulties of the march. 

On September 25, they reached a station of the 
Scottish Industrial Mission, a delightful spot 3070 feet 
above sea level, where they perceived what a Scotsman 
can do to a swamp in Africa. By artificial means it 
had been transformed into a clear stream of water 
flowing through a garden growing all kinds of plants 
and vegetables. Dr. Charters was the head of this 
station, and his friend Mr. Colquhoun was paying him 
a visit. Accordingly next day these two gentlemen 
accompanied Vandeleur's caravan six miles along their 
forward march, said good-bye and branched off to 
their shooting camp which had been arranged for 
previously. From that day to this they were never 
again seen or heard of, dead or alive. Numerous causes 
have been hazarded to account for their disappearance, 
such as lions, dearth of water, Masai warriors ; but the 
matter still remains a mystery, and the curious thing 
is that Dr. Charters was perfectly well acquainted with 
the country and had been to the same spot to shoot 
on a former occasion. The caravan under Mr. Jack- 
son's leadership proceeded on its way, and on October 5 
arrived at a station named Machakos, 5400 feet above 
the sea and situated in the highlands of East Africa, 
where the days are clouded and cool and it is a pleasure 
to live. 

At last they descended into the district bordering 
the Victoria Nyanza, and Vandeleur beheld for the 
first time the blue waters of the great inland sea which 
it had long been his ambition to reach. The country 



48 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

was rich in magnificent banana plantations and a 
numerous population clothed in bark cloth. The 
journey of 800 miles came to an end on November 28^ 
when they reached Entebbe, the headquarters of the 
Administration and reported themselves to Colonel 
Colvile, who had built a charming house on a cliff 
overhanging the lake. 

At the date of Vandeleur's arrival the mail from 
London to Entebbe took over three months : it now 
takes less than one. Here he met Major (now Colonel) 
Cunningham, C.B., D.S.O. who became his command- 
ing officer and remained his intimate friend during the 
rest of his life. They were to be much thrown together; 
first on active service in Uganda, next in Nigeria and 
finally in South Africa. Their first duty was to pro- 
ceed to Unyoro and undertake a reconnaissance 
across Take Albert and down the Nile to its furthest 
navigable point. 

Fever was prevalent amongst the Europeans at 
this time and Vandeleur had frequent bouts of it ; 
Cunningham was also down, but he pluckily decided 
to march on December 19, and they accordingly 
started for Unyoro, taking their ponies with them. 
These horses were the first to make the journey and 
it was doubtful whether they would reach the end of it. 
Swamps were the main difficulty, for at that time 
they were not crossed by the causeways and bridges 
which have since been constructed under British 
supervision. Vandeleur's pony most frequently got 
into trouble, as it lost its head, plunged madly into the 
reeds and sank up to its neck in water. But even to 
a man who does not lose his head, the Unyoro road 
presented features which one would not select for an 
afternoon stroll. Now clutching hold of the papyrus 
at the side, now stepping from one lump of vegetation 



MASAI WARRIORS 

I^RITISH K\ST AkkUA 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 49 

to another, one tries in vain to save oneself from sink- 
ing deeper into the quagmire of mud and water. Yet 
in spite of these gymnastics under a tropical sun, 
perhaps in consequence of them, both Cunningham 
and Vandeleur were quite fit. 

At the end of three days they reached Fort Ray- 
mond, where Captain Dunning, D.S.O., commanded ; 
and eight days later (January i, 1895) arrived at Fort 
Hoima, the headquarters in Unyoro, where they stayed 
only a week. As they proceeded towards Lake Albert 
the country became more open until suddenly from 
the edge of a precipitous escarpment 1200 feet high 
they beheld the great sheet of water, bordered by a 
strip of yellow sand. 

The diminutive expedition embarked in a twenty- 
foot steel boat which had been carried in sections by 
porters from the coast ; the two officers, eight Sudanese 
and eight Zanzibaris with tents, baggage, one maxim, 
the sail and eight oars, filled up the boat, so that cross- 
ing the lake in a squall required careful trimming. 
After reaching the western shore in safety and skirting 
it for a whole day, they came to the village of Amat, 
where Lake Albert narrows to 600 yards and becomes 
the White Nile. The following day was spent in rowing 
and sailing down the river, which soon became so 
rapid that the boat drifted at a goodly pace and its 
occupants realised that they would be in a nasty 
predicament if attacked and compelled to retreat 
against the stream. At Wadelai they encamped on 
the site of Emin Pasha's old fort, now completely 
overgrown by vegetation. Dervishes were reported 
at the Dufile cataracts, and it would have been a sad 
day for Cunningham and Vandeleur if they had been 
captured and sent to Omdurman to join Slatin Pasha 
and the other prisoners of the Khahfa, especially as 

D 



50 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

there was at that time no prospect of a British advance 
into the Sudan ! 

On January 14 the old fort at Dufile was reached, 
situated above the Cataract, with parapet and ditches 
still distinctly traced and some lemon trees and cotton 
bushes the only remaining signs of Egyptian occupa- 
tion. Cunningham and Vandeleur were the first white 
men to revisit this spot since its abandonment in 
November, 1888. In that month the Dervishes pene- 
trated into the station after three days' fighting and 
a successful night attack, as described by Cassati (an 
Italian), who was present. Cunningham concluded 
a treaty with the local chief, who reported the Dervishes 
to be in possession of the country beyond the rapids ; 
and the British flag was hoisted on both banks of the 
Nile. It now flies on the right bank only. 

The expedition had reached the furthest navigable 
point. Below the Cataract the river is a seething 
torrent, fifty yards broad, bej^ond which foaming rapids 
succeed one another at intervals to Lado, 120 miles 
from Dufile. From Lado to Khartoum are 900 miles 
of open water-way, now navigated by modern steamers 
under the British and Egyptian flags. After verifying 
native reports of the Dervish strength and surveying 
the course of the Nile, the two oflicers had accom- 
plished all that was expected of them ; they accordingly 
returned to Unyoro in order to take up more pressing 
work in that province. 

In one way Vandeleur was fortunate in the date 
of his arrival on the waters of the Upper Nile, which 
were destined during the five ensuing years to be 
opened up from the north, south and west. At the 
date of his journey the Khalifa was still in full power 
at Omdurman and the people of Great Britain had 
hardly realised that there was work to be done on 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 51 

the African continent. It was Vandeleur's privilege 
to take an active part in all this work, but he was 
also a thinker ; and this is what he wrote in 1897 (the 
date is important) concerning the Upper Nile : 

" It is towards Fashoda that French expeditions 
are now hurrying, both from the French Congo on the 
west, a journey of 2000 miles via the Ubangi and 
Mbomu rivers, and from Abyssinia on the east. Two 
years ago (1895) Semio, an advanced post on the 
Mbomu river, was occupied ; and latterly a further 
advance has been made across the watershed between 
the Congo and the Nile, to Dem Zibehr, a distance 
of 180 miles, and a small post established at Tambura 
(under M. Liotard) on the Sue river 170 miles to the 
east, without opposition on the part of the natives. 
The post is, of course, isolated, and necessary supplies 
have to be transported all this long distance from the 
base, but the fact remains that the French are now 
on the watershed of the Nile, and they need find no 
difficulty — except in the matter of transport and food 
— in establishing themselves at Meshra-el-Rek, even if 
they have not reached that place already. Junker 
journeyed from the latter place to Dem Zibehr by Jur 
Ghattas in nineteen days, through the country inhabited 
by the Dinkas. It is reported that a large and well- 
armed expedition, composed of men of the Foreign 
Legion and tirailleurs SSnegalais, all starting from 
Semio under Captain Marchand — supported by four 
other ofhcers — is to co-operate with that under M. 
Liotard at Dem Zibehr, and is carrying a small steel 
gun-boat with it. The difficulties in the way of trans- 
porting such a vessel a distance of over 300 miles are 
very great, as we have seen in trying to transport a 
steamer in sections to the Victoria Nyanza from the 



52 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

east coast. Although the Bahr-el-Ghazal province 
is peopled by some of the most warlike races in the 
Sudan and supplies the best recruits for the Sudanese 
battalions, there is no cohesion among them and they 
recognise no single ruler or head. This fact will make 
the French advance easier, as no organised opposition 
on a large scale will be met with. The majority of 
the natives are not fanatical Mohammedans. The 
other expedition from the east, under the Marquis de 
Bonchamps who is taking with him an escort of armed 
Abyssinians, had, in July 1897, reached Gore, close 
to the place where Captain Bott^go was killed four 
months before, joining here an expedition under 
another Frenchman, Captain Clochette, who has since 
died. They went on from here to the Didessa river, 
which flows into the Blue Nile. Besides experiencing 
transport difficulties they were beginnng to suffer 
from desertions on the part of their men. 

' * One can but admire the enterprise of these French 
officers in leading their perilous expeditions ; but what 
does it all mean, and why should the French be pushing 
on with such speed into what is clearly regarded as the 
Anglo-Egyptian sphere of influence in the Nile valley, 
remote as it is from their own territories in Africa ? " 

The above quotation, which so prophetically fore- 
told what was actually to happen at Fashoda in 
August, 1898, is taken from Vandeleur's book, '* Cam- 
paigning on the Upper Nile and Niger" ; there is, how- 
ever, reason to believe that he had put the case even 
more plainly in his original manuscript, the proofs 
of which were submitted to the Foreign Office before 
publication. But what has been quoted above is after 
all sufficient to show that our Foreign Office had ample 
warning of impending events ; and it is futile to plead 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 53 

on its behalf that there was no rehable evidence of the 
aggression with which the French menaced us on the 
Upper Nile. But a deaf ear was turned to the warning, 
with the result that 130 black soldiers under Major 
Marchand caused the British Empire to mobilise its 
fleets and prepare for war in all parts of the world, no in- 
significant performance for a major of marines and a 
handful of blacks. The French gave way directly they 
realised that our Government and people meant busi- 
ness in the Fashoda incident, but why, one asks, did 
not the French Government reahse beforehand that 
we should stand firm and hold by our rights on the 
Nile? 

The reply seems to be that British Governments 
had shirked imperial responsibilities for so many years 
that the French had every reason to believe we should 
give way on the Nile, as we had done at other places. 
European nations were all equally surprised at the firm- 
ness we displayed after we found Marchand at Fashoda. 
It was a revelation to them to see us give up pusil- 
lanimity and maintain our rights ; and yet it is surely 
the business of a wise diplomacy to enlighten continen- 
tal Cabinets as to the questions we deem vital to our 
interests, and to do this before instead of after the 
mobilisation of the Channel Fleet. On the other hand 
it may fairly be claimed that our menace of war had 
a more potent effect than any diplomatic representa- 
tion?. 

However that may be, let us at any rate recognise 
that the French officers in Africa did not muddle along 
and trust everything to chance. Every detail of their 
adventurous scheme was carefully thought out and 
arranged for : it took them about three years to 
organise the expedition from the west coast and the 
expedition from the east coast which were to meet 



54 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

at the confluence of the Sobat river and the Nile. The 
expedition from Abyssinia was numerous and well 
armed, but Menelik refused to entrust it to any com- 
mander but an Abyssinian. Two Frenchmen and an 
officer of the Russian Guards accompanied it and gave 
advice ; but the Ras commanded, and being a true 
son of the highlands, he would have nothing to do with 
boats of any sort. The Abyssinians consequently 
suffered frightful hardships in the Sobat marshes and 
many died in the unaccustomed climate ; nevertheless 
they reached the junction of the Nile and Sobat in 
July, 1898, and planted the Abyssinian flag. But 
the Ras was furious because he did not find Marchand 
and the French waiting for him at the rendezvous, as 
had been promised, so he at once retired to Abyssinia, 
in spite of the entreaties of his three European friends. 
All they could do under such circumstances was to 
write a letter explaining the cause of their retreat, 
place it in a bottle, and tie the bottle to a long pole 
which they erected at the place of rendezvous. The 
Abyssinians would not consent to wait even one day 
for their alHes. Only ten days later Marchand arrived 
from the west, found the letter in the bottle tied to 
the pole and at once sent Captain Baratier in the 
steamer Faidherbe up the Sobat to bring back the 
Abyssinians. But the current was strong, progress 
against it was slow, and the Abyssinians had been in 
a desperate hurry to get home. Owing to the marshes 
along the Sobat they moved at a considerable distance 
from the river ; so, though Baratier accomplished a 
remarkable journey of 250 miles up-stream, he never 
came in touch with those he was seeking. This was 
a bitter disappointment to Marchand, as the scheme 
of uniting French and Abyssinian territory on the Nile 
was the essential feature of his plan for severing the 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 55 

Egyptian Sudan from Uganda and cutting the Cape 
to Cairo line for ever. 

It may perhaps interest my readers to know that, 
as soon as Marchand quitted our territory in 1898, I 
traced the routes both of the Abyssinians and of 
Baratier up the Sobat and am in possession of a 
" letter of protection " bestowed by the French officer 
on one local chief and of a silk Abyssinian flag which 
was forced on another chief. This digression into the 
Fashoda incident, and the admirable forethought 
which Vandeleur brought to bear on it before the event, 
will illustrate better than pages of biography how 
intimately he was acquainted with events in Equatorial 
Africa. We will now return to the year 1895 and to the 
practical work in which he was engaged. 

On reaching the fort at Hoima, news arrived that 
Kabarega, King of Unyoro, was on the warpath with 
1200 men, raiding the country for slaves and loot ; 
and that one or two Arab caravans were importing 
arms and ammunition for various predatory local 
chiefs. The curious thing was that the natives were 
generally in league with these caravans, although the 
result of importing arms was invariably to cause 
slave-raids on a large scale, with the usual loss of life 
and liberty to themselves ! Even in kingdoms like 
Unyoro and Uganda, which had been more or less 
organised for centuries, the people had no collective 
interests : one tribe would attack its neighbour solely 
because it felt strong enough to ensure success : a 
village would likewise prey upon another village of 
the same tribe. Amid this welter of strife there could 
be no mutual confidence between man and man, nor 
an organised party hostile to slavery : it was only when 
some exceptionally capable man arose in the shape of 
a king or witch-doctor that the natives banded them- 



56 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

selves together for concerted action : and this was 
usually brought about with the object of enslaving 
the neighbourhood. Such were the normal conditions 
of society previous to the advent of Enghshmen, and 
the numerous expeditions sent against Kabarega and 
others arose from the necessity of stopping slave raids. 
In these expeditions the backbone consisted of the 
Sudanese soldiers, organised into companies under 
their own native officers. To this backbone of regulars 
were added temporary local levies ; the whole force 
being controlled by a handful of young British officers. 
There was an immense amount of work to be done 
in many parts of a wide territory, entailing arduous 
marches in single file along faint tracks, through 
tropical forests and across frequent swamps : the 
British officers were too few, and these few were too 
frequently changed. Owing to the difficulty of convey- 
ing goods from the coast, the troops were generally 
without clothing and often in arrears of pay and 
yet were not allowed to loot. 

The expedition against Kabarega started in two 
columns on February 20, 1895, with the maxim gun 
detachment commanded by Vandeleur and was com- 
posed of four and a half companies of Sudanese and 
some 2000 irregular Baganda and Bunyoro levies. 
It marched through Northern Unyoro to the Victoria 
Nile and encamped on an island opposite the enemy's 
position. The river was here iioo yards broad, and 
the masses of " sudd " on either side rendered the 
crossing difficult. Every opening in the vegetation 
on the enemy's bank was defended by stockades and 
entrenchments, and these had to be attacked from the 
island, under cover of a maxim gun fusillade. 

The attack was timed for dawn on March 2, and the 
intervening days were devoted to the construction of 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 57 

a raised platform at the edge of the water, on which 
the maxims were posted. It was a cold misty dawn 
when the five canoes carrying the Sudanese under 
Cunningham, Dunning and Ashburnham pushed out 
and proceeded along a narrow channel in the weeds 
to the edge of the open water, where they were to wait 
for daylight. Meanwhile Vandeleur was straining 
his eyes from the platform to get a glimpse of the 
opposite shore. At last the air cleared, the canoes 
paddled out into the stream and the maxims opened 
fire ; but the enemy were prepared. They opened a 
heavy fusillade on the advancing canoes, upset two of 
them, and completely repulsed the attack. Cunning- 
ham and Dunning were severely wounded ; Ashburn- 
ham had a narrow escape from a bullet in his helmet ; 
several of the men were killed and wounded. The 
care of the wounded officers being now the main 
consideration, it was decided to withdraw to Hoima. 
Dunning, shot through the chest, was in a critical 
condition, but there was no medical man to attend on 
him, and all that was known of the nearest available 
doctor was that he had " started from the coast in 
November," and might, therefore, by now have reached 
Hoima. 

The melancholy procession accordingly quitted the 
feverish camp on the island, escorting the wounded 
officers through undergrowth and swamps which sorely 
impeded the bearers, and constantly harassed by 
natives flushed with victory. 

" On March 9 [wrote Vandeleur] a black came up 
in haste to the front of the column to fetch me, and on 
going back a short way I found poor Dunning quite 
unconscious. His litter had been placed on the 
ground, and the bearers were standing round in a 



58 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

helpless manner. I made every effort to restore him, 
but in vain, and at length the sad conviction stole over 
me that he was dead. I had striven hard not to believe 
that this was the case, and must confess to giving way 
altogether, in grief of the loss of a brave and gallant 
comrade and realising the utter sadness of such a 
death in this far-off savage land. . . . Ashburnham 
and I were anxious about Cunningham, and he was 
not informed of Dunning's death till, on reaching 
Hoima, the fact could no longer be concealed. Here, 
to our dismay, there was still no doctor, and Dr. 
Mackinnon did not arrive till March 30. However, 
Cunningham, with rest and care, improved gradually 
and was soon able to get about on crutches." 

Such are the risks which British officers incur on distant 
expeditions, when the proverbial " corporal's guard " 
is called upon to secure a province. To criticise is 
easy, but we should recollect that, unless during three 
centuries we had secured provinces with corporal's 
guards, we should now have but few provinces in the 
Empire. 

Every effort was made to collect a stronger force 
and, by April 20, Cunningham was well enough to take 
command of the following men assembled at Mruli, 
on the Victoria Nile : six companies Sudanese (500 
men) ; 20,000 Baganda, under the Katikiro (general 
of the Uganda army) ; two Hotchkiss guns, three 
maxim guns, and the following British officers — 
Ternan, Ashburnham, Madocks, Vandeleur, Dr. Mac- 
kinnon. 

Kabarega and his men had moved further east, 
and were in larger numbers in the Wakedi country 
opposite Mruli, spending bus}^ nights in digging en- 
trenchments and hammering at stockades on the 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 59 

cliffs of the Nile bank. By day our maxims harassed 
them continually from across the river. On the 22nd 
Mr. Grant arrived with a fleet of canoes and delivered 
a successful attack, covered by a heavy fire from the 
Hotchkiss and maxims. The canoes crossed the river 
to the barrier of " sudd," where their occupants waded 
ashore and carried the stockade by storm. This 
decided the day, and in a few moments the enemy 
could be seen flying over the hill, pursued by the 
Baganda. They had fought well, as the dead found 
in the trenches, forty-three in number, showed. 

The next three days were occupied by the force in 
crossing over the Nile, with the exception of a detach- 
ment under Ashburnham, sent along the left bank to 
prevent Kabarega from crossing back into Unyoro. The 
main body advanced along the right bank, supported by 
the canoes, one of which, called the flag-ship, was hewn 
out of a single tree and easily held flfty men and a 
maxim. Kabarega retreated through the Wakcdi 
country, whose inhabitants are a primitive and naked 
people, armed with spears, bows and poisoned arrows, 
a race of small men, formidable on account of their 
boldness and agility. They are famed for night 
attacks, in which they had frequently routed our allies 
the Baganda in times past and they inspired consider- 
able dread. However, our poHcy was one of friendliness 
to the Wakedi, with whom we had no quarrel, and 
strict orders were issued that their villages were not 
to be molested ; but their hostility to the Baganda 
prompted them to spear both men and women from 
the cover of the high grass, and their agility enabled 
them to escape unhurt ; consequently, the Baganda 
could not always be restrained from retaliating on the 
villages. 

The pursuit of Kabarega by a ponderous column 



6o SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

surrounded by unfriendly Wakedi evidently had but 
slight chances of success, so Cunningham sent forward 
a flying column of two companies Sudanese, one maxim, 
7000 Baganda under Madocks and Vandeleur. This 
force started in the lightest possible order ; marched 
at a rapid pace the whole of one day, and was off again 
at dawn the following morning ; the tracks of the 
enemy's cattle became fresher each hour ; there even 
seemed a chance of coming up with Kabarega's main 
body. The pace grew faster and faster, and the 
Baganda scouts were hke hounds in full cry. Un- 
luckily, a halt at noon was absolutely necessary to 
enable the porters carrying ammunition to come up, 
as the Wakedi threatened to rush the rear. At 3 p.m. 
an immense quantity of cattle were captured, with a 
loss to us of ten killed and wounded. But the pace 
had been too fast, our men were too tired to move 
further that day, and so Kabarega eluded pursuit. 
A zariba was formed and watch kept against a night 
attack by the Wakedi, to whom the captured cattle 
formed an overwhelming temptation. Next day the 
flying column rejoined the main body in safety. 

The result of the campaign was that forts and 
administrative posts were established in northern 
Unyoro and along the Victoria Nile ; that some 250 
women and children, who had been raided in past 
years, were restored to their homes ; and that Kaba- 
rega, though he eluded capture, suffered a severe loss 
of cattle, was driven from the country and his sphere 
of iniquity considerably diminished. He had finally 
to be dealt with by another expedition a few years 
later. 

Vandeleur returned to Hoima, and found they had 
been having exciting times, as the following entries 
in the diary of Mr. Foster, will show : 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 6i 

" April 19. — Lion visited camp during night and 
carried off woman. 

" April 20. — Lion came again and took another 
woman. 

" April 21. — Lion carried off a man. Seen by 
patrols and fired at. He visited cattle-house and was 
wounded by guard. 

** April 22. — Section went out to look for lion and 
found him near river. Badly wounded, but very 
fierce ! Was killed and brought to camp. 

" April 24. — Another lion (probably lioness) visited 
camp during night and carried off child. Was seen 
by patrols and fired at. 

" April 25. — Lioness came again and went to 
cattle-house, where guard fired at and wounded her. 
One of the shots struck house at considerable distance 
and entered thigh of woman, where it still remains. 
Woman apparently little the worse. 

" May 3. — Askari (soldier) broke out of camp at 
night in drunken state and fired six shots at sentries. 
Attempts made to capture him, but without success. 



>> 



And yet some people think hfe in Africa must be 
so dull ! 

Vandeleur's stay in this exciting spot was brief, 
as in two days he was sent on an expedition, this time 
in command. Disturbances had been rife in Southern 
Unyoro owing to Arab caravans bringing arms and 
gunpowder into the country in exchange for slaves 
and ivory. Cunningham was down with blackwater 
fever, so Vandeleur was ordered off with two com- 
panies Sudanese, one maxim and the Baganda irregu- 
lars ; total, 250 men. The Httle force pushed forward 
as quickly as pouring rain and difficult tracks allowed. 
The country was entirely unmapped and it was not 



62 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

easy to obtain information as to the whereabouts of 
the Arab station — the objective of the expedition. 
By good hick, however, it was located on the further 
side of two big swamps and a river. These crossed, 
a road led to the station, and owing to the high grass 
surrounding it, Vandelcur and his men surprised and 
captured it successfully. Eighteen prisoners were 
taken and several slaves, besides a quantity of cloth, 
ivory, silks, guns and gunpowder, but the leaders 
themselves escaped into the bush. 

It is curious that this station had existed so long 
without being discovered and shows the difficulty of 
ascertaining what goes on in this wilderness of high 
elephant grass and river swamps. Kalfan, the leading 
Arab, had been in Unyoro two yeai's and employed a 
number of subordinates who conducted caravans to 
and from the coast through German territory. It 
must have been a lucrative trade, as the price of slaves 
was not high. One woman said she had been bought 
for three goats, with an extra goat thrown in for 
her child. Another woman had been sold for a 
load of beads, and others for guns. Apparently there 
was a demand for fat ladies, as there were four Baganda 
slaves of such mountainous proportions that they could 
hardly move about. 

On the return journey Vandeleur resolved to follow 
a difterent road and was rewarded with a piece of 
great good fortune. His scouts warned him that a 
caravan was approaching, having chosen this very 
route in order to a\'oid him, and sure enough the Arab 
leaders, strolling at the head of their men, walked 
straight into the arms of an ambush concealed in the 
high grass. Some escaped ; but the leaders, many 
prisoners and all the loot of the caravan fell into the 
hands of Vandeleur's dehtihted Sudanese. As a result 









>IWW^«n^ ItikAi-. 



K()AI>-MAKIN(; IN UGANDA FORESTS 

(^irofssiNG A Swam I 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 63 

of this expedition the local chiefs came in to make their 
peace with the British, communications were opened 
and confidence restored, and by July i, Vandeleur was 
back at Hoima with his captured loot, prisoners and 
slaves. His men were granted two months' pay as a 
gratuity for their services ; he himself received a letter 
of warm congratulation from the headquarters of the 
Protectorate, and his reputation as a successful leader 
of men was estabUshed in Uganda. 

Shortly afterwards he received orders to march 
with a detachment of Sudanese to take part in an 
impending expedition against the Nandi tribe, and he 
thus quitted Unyoro for ever. 

During his nine months' stay there he collected 
the material for the first authentic map of the 
country ; and so excellent and accurate was his geo- 
graphical work that he was subsequently awarded 
the Murchison Grant by the Royal Geographical 
Society, one of the highest compHments which could be 
paid to an officer who was not an engineer by trade, 
and whose duties were as numerous as Vandeleur' s. 

Space forbids any but a cursory description of the 
Nandi expedition, the troops for which consisted of 
400 Sudanese, a maxim, and a contingent of 30 Baganda. 
Such a force proved inadequate to the task imposed 
on it, as the country was mountainous and it was 
impossible to ascertain anything concerning it, for the 
surrounding natives held the Nandi in such dread that 
they refused to act as guides. A desultory and harass- 
ing campaign was the result ; the Httle expedition 
advanced far into the mountains, finally attaining an 
altitude of 9000 feet ; only on two occasions did the 
Nandi attack in strength, but sniping was a matter of 
daily occurrence, and every night the force packed itself 
into a zariba, the sentries calUng out the numbers of 



/ 



64 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

their posts monotonously and incessantly throughout 
the night to ensure keeping awake. The officers 
learned afterwards from prisoners that this precaution 
had saved them from night attacks, a method of 
warfare especially favoured by the Nandi. 

One day, when the expedition had climbed over 
several mountains without seeing an enemy, heavy 
firing in front announced that the patrol was engaged. 

" The column prepared for action ; and none too 
soon. Only a few natives were visible on the ridge, 
and it was with astonishment we saw a crowd of about 
500 coming over the top of the hill at great speed, 
apparently well organised and formed in three sides 
of a square, above which a dense thicket of long- 
bladed spears flashed in the sunlight. Wheeling to 
the left by a common impulse, on they came, in spite 
of the maxim, and charged down with great dash on 
our force, which closed up to face the attack. It was 
a critical moment, but the Sudanese stood firm, and 
as the mass of natives approached our heavy fire 
began to tell. Nearer and nearer they came and it 
almost seemed that they would overwhelm my com- 
pany, which had to bear the brunt of the attack ; but 
at last, wavering before the leaden hail which they had 
never before experienced, their ranks broke and they 
scattered in all directions, leaving many of their num- 
ber on the ground. It was a splendid charge, and, if 
continued for thirty yards more, would have been a 
successful one. Fourteen of our men were killed. 
This charge was a revelation to us after fighting the 
cautious Bunyoro and Arabs, and at once accounted 
for the reputation and prestige which the Nandi en- 
joyed amongst other East African tribes. They are 
a fine-looking race, very black, strong and muscular." 



SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 65 

Two nights afterwards they attempted a desperate 
night attack, which Hkewise failed, the flame from 
the rifles causing more panic to the Nandi than their 
heavy losses the day before. After this they attempted 
no further attacks, but operations dragged on profit- 
lessly enough for another month and when, on New 
Year's Day, 1896, the expedition returned to' Uganda, 
it left the Nandi cowed, but by no means subdued! 
In fact so intolerable did their depredations become, 
much after the fashion of the Scottish Highlanders 
of old, that in 1900 a strong force was sent to subdue 
them. After six months' fighting had taught them 
our power, they sued for peace, became our good friends 
and some of their " young bloods " are now members 
of the Uganda Constabulary, the guardians of law 
and order. 

Vandeleur had now but a few months to spend in 
East Africa, for in April he embarked for England at 
Mombasa. Reviewing his work it may truthfully 
be said that he never spent an idle moment, that 
at twenty-six he had laid the foundation of a' good 
mihtary reputation and that his services were highly 
appreciated by his superiors. 

As regards himself the years spent in Uganda 
marked out the trend of his after hfe. Africa laid her 
hold on him as she does on other men, and hence- 
forward service abroad became the one thing worth 
living for. It was not merely from love of fighting 
or from a vague feehng that soldiering at home was 
not good enough that he was drawn away. The 
African country, the natives, the work and all the 
circumstances of life in a land of spacious areas 
attracted him. 

He was dehghted to return to home ties and friends 
and his regiment and regarded such times as a hoUday, 



66 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

but his real interest lay elsewhere. Indeed, he did 
his best to pass straight from Uganda to another sphere 
of African warfare. The Dongola Expedition was 
about to start, and Seymour broke his journey at 
Cairo in the hope of obtaining employment in it. 
There were, however, no vacancies, so he lost his com- 
fortable P. & O. berth for nothing, and had to put up 
with a disagreeable passage in the cabin of a cargo 
boat. During the next few months he thought of 
going out to the Matabele War, but was again dis- 
appointed, so began reading for the Staff College 
and — with Egypt still in his mind — embarked on the 
study of Arabic. 

Despite these pre-occupations, Seymour thoroughly 
enjoyed his London season and cultivated new friends 
some of whom, like himself, had their thoughts centred 
on African topics. His stock of information was already 
considerable and, though very modest about it, he 
was not too self-conscious to discuss things with men of 
greater experience. He was elected a Fellow of the 
Royal Geographical Society, became a regular atten- 
dant at their meetings and read a paper on Uganda. 
At Liverpool he also gave a lecture to the British i\sso- 
ciation on his journe}^ down the Nile to Dulile. 

His maps of the Nandi country and Unyoro 
attracted attention at the War Office and were adopted 
by the Intelligence Department as the official surveys 
of those territories, gi\'ing Vandeleur much hard work 
to complete them. After he rejoined his battalion 
in London a reward for his ser^dces reached him in the 
shape of the D.S.O. — a decoration which was not then 
so much worn as it is now. He received the announce- 
ment with unbounded delight and records in his diary 
a few da3^s later that he was on the Queen's Guard 
with Captain Pulteney and " feels sure that it is the 



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SOLDIERING IN UGANDA 67 

first time that two D.S.O.s have been on guard 
together." ^ 

He received the decoration from the hands of the 
Queen at Wmdsor just at the time when the wish of 
his heart was granted, in that he obtained Sir George 
Goldie's offer of six months' special service in the Niger 
Protectorate. Thus he set forth again at the end of 
November, within seven months of his return to 
England. 

However, before we follow his footsteps any further 
It wiU be advisable to acquaint ourselves with the story 
of Nigeria. '^ 



CHAPTER IV 

THE STORY OF NIGERIA 

See map of Africa at end of hook 

The intention of this chapter is to afford the reader 
some insight into the general history of the States of 
the interior of northern Africa, and especially of those 
which are called British Nigeria. To make the subject 
clear, we are necessarily taken far back into past 
centuries and moved to chronicle the enterprises of 
energetic men whose names are unfamiliar to English- 
men, unless they happen to be acquainted with African 
history. It is a story full of adventure and curious 
incident, and one which is likely to attract more and 
more attention in these islands, now that Great Britain 
has occupied her share of the Continent and become 
responsible for many millions of its inhabitants. Under 
a wise government Nigeria's future prosperity is likely 
to be prodigious : its history, meanwhile, is wondrously 
interesting. 

We should, however, bear in mind that the modern 
term " Nigeria " is a European colloquialism which 
bears but slight resemblance to the native subdivision 
of the country, though it is an apt expression to desig- 
nate the region over which King Edward VII. rules. 
Its frontiers have been arbitrarily arranged between 
ourselves and France and Germany, and they neces- 
sarily cut in twain ancient native kingdoms and 
settled areas which happen to lie on the border. For 
the sake of a peaceful solution to the European partition 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 69 

of Africa, we must abide by our treaties and train our 
subjects to acquiesce in their altered landmarks, which, 
on the whole, are not likely to prove a difficulty. 

A glance at the maps of Africa will put the reader 
in possession of the respective French, German, and 
British spheres, to which we need not again refer in 
retaiUng the local history. He will see, too, the whole 
course of the Niger river, rising behind the coast 
mountains of Sierra Leone, sweeping in a magnificent 
semi-circle through populous regions, and (with its 
only important tributary, the Benue) traversing 
3000 miles of Africa on its journey to the Atlantic. 
Yet this mighty river was first seen by the Scotsman, 
Mungo Park, in 1796, and first traced to its mouth by 
Richard Lander in 1830 — so carefuUy were its hundred 
mouths concealed in mangrove swamps and intricate 
channels. 

But, although authentic confirmation of the exist- 
ence of the Niger only came to us a hundred years ago, 
the river had been discovered by the Roman explorer 
Julius Maternus, who crossed the Sahara Desert at 
the beginning of the Christian era ; he was followed in 
37 A.D. by the Roman General C. Suetonius Paulus, 
who wrote a description of negroland which is quoted 
by Pliny. These explorers had no incentive beyond 
their individual enterprise, no financial backing save 
that of a few personal friends and their labours con- 
sequently bore no permanent results ; for, to success- 
fully explore and map a continent requires for its 
accomphshment a great deal more than the geographer's 
curiosity or the traveller's desire to collect incredible 
tales. 

With the disappearance of the Roman Empire 
and the events which followed we are not concerned, 
but the eighth century saw a revolutionising change 
in the conditions of northern Africa, brought about 



70 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

by the first Arab conquest and the spread of a revealed 
rehgion. In ()4o a.d. a certain Amru Ibn el Aasse 
invatlcd Egypt with 4000 Arabs ; and, following thcni, 
wave upt)n wave of Moslem immigrants jwured into the 
northern coastlands, bearing aloft the torch of Islam, 
inculcating a new spiritual life, introducing everywhere 
progressive methods of agriculture, commerce, trade, 
industries and, above all, instituting a system of 
government which pro\'ed suitable to the backward 
state of the country. Europe was swept out of the 
continent, including the renmants of that remarkable 
crowd of 80,000 Goths who crossed over from Spain 
under Genseric in 480 a.d. and settled about Carthage, 
where they maintained themselves against Rome for 
a century. 

These Arab conquerors were no mere land-grabbers 
and j)lunderers ; they set systematicall}' to work to 
regenerate the country and henceforth identified 
their interests with it. Cities were built and the natives 
raisetl above their condition under the decayed Empire 
of Rome. Thus they altered the destiny of the in- 
digenous populations, founded states, developed a 
conunercial activity more extensive than that of 
ancient Carthage, introduced the camel into Africa, 
instituted regular caravan routes across the continent 
and protected them, so that merchandise could, for the 
first time, be transported for journeys of a thousand 
miles by land. To assert that they converted and ruled 
by the sword alone is to misrepresent a shrewd race 
of governors. Education and industrial development 
were features of their administrative system, without 
which it could not have lasted during nine centuries. 
Every village had one or more schools where Arabic 
reading and writing were taught to the offspring of 
the Arabs as well as to the children of the soil, and 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 71 

where the Mohaniedan laws ol tlie Koran were ex- 
pounded and learnt by heart. These Arabs were a 
prolilie race and did not disdain niarri.if^e with the 
woiTKMi of the country, so class distinctions became 
gradually attenuated and therelore less irksoint; to the 
governed; slaves and eunuchs could, and ire([uenlly 
did rise to positions oi i)ower and responsibility. 

Arab ge()grai)hers explorcxl tlie continent in (^very 
direction ; historians recorded the reigns ol the kings 
and emperors of the more powerful dynasties. Streams 
of pilgrims poured across the continent to Mecca, and 
kept up a continuous intercourse between the various 
States through which they passed. When we look 
back and consider the times and the general state of 
the world in the Middle Ages, and reflect uj)on the 
inaccessibility of interior Africa and the dilficulties 
the Arabs encountered, we must admit that they 
accomplished a great work of civilisation in the regions 
they ruled. 

It would a])pear from the records that th(! religion 
of Mohamed first crossed the vSahara in tlie t(;ntli 
century, and by the end of the fourteenth had taken 
root among the indigenous negroes of the Niger region 
where it continues to spread in our own times. Some 
of the Arab explorers were men of considerable mental 
attainments and understood the science of geograi)hy, 
such as El iiekri, who lived at the time of our William 
the Conqueror, and Idrissi (1154), to whose maps and 
writings we are ind{;btc:d for a first glimpse of the 
country about Lake Chad and the various races of 
Nigeria. 

In 1352, a man who rejoiced in the nann; of ibii 
Batuta of Tangier was commissioned by the Sultan 
of Morocco to undertake an exj^edition. This remark- 
able explorer journeyed from Fez to Tnnbuktu, 



72 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

descended the Niger to Gogo, pushed southwards and 
eastwards across the whole continent, emerged near 
Zanzibar and returned to Morocco through the eastern 
Sudan. Unfortunately his book of travels has not been 
preserved, with the exception of a portion found in 
Cairo, though it is hoped that careful research may 
ultimately discover a copy. Another envoy of the 
court of Morocco to the Sudanese kings was Hassan 
el Wasas, known in Europe as Leo Africanus, whose 
" Description of Africa," written in Arabic in 1526, 
has been translated into Latin, Itahan, French and 
English. There were numbers of other historians and 
explorers at work, but sufficient indication has been 
given to show how widespread was Arab influence 
and how extensive the territory it embraced. It 
probably attained its highest development in the six- 
teenth century, since when it has been either stationary 
or retrograde. 

All along the Mediterranean coast the fiery zeal 
of the followers of the Prophet compelled Berbers, 
Romans, Greeks, Goths and others to merge their 
distinctions and become Moslems or perish, but in 
the course of centuries this ruthless fanaticism died 
down, and a milder procedure than that of exter- 
minating the recalcitrant was employed in propounding 
the faith to the tribes of negroes further south. Progress 
was slower, and to this day many of these tribes remain 
pagan, but the ruling families of negroland embraced 
the religion of the Koran with avidity ; it was suited 
to their stage of mental development, it appealed to 
their highest instincts, it added dignity to their lives, 
and many of them became zealous missionaries of 
Islam amongst their unconverted brethren. 

Negroland suffered no such incursion of Arab 
hordes as occurred in the north. Nature in the form 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 73 

of the Sahara interposed a belt of a thousand miles 
of desert between the fertile shore of the Mediterranean 
and the still more productive districts of the Sudan ; 
the desert stretched across the continent from the Red 
Sea to the Atlantic and was the determining factor 
in moulding the destiny of Nigeria. In this connection 
it is instructive to look along the 13th degree of north 
latitude, which roughly divides the region of ehicient 
rain from that of scanty rain, and therefore indicates 
the temperate rain-zone of northern Africa. It divides 
populations whose wealth consists of cattle, from those 
whose wealth is camels ; it has an average elevation 
above the sea of 1000 to 2000 feet ; and has been the 
scene of the greatest Arab activity, from the tenth 
century down to the Baggara empire of the Dervishes, 
which recently held the Egyptian Sudan in an iron 
grip. 

If we except the Abyssinian highlands (6000 feet 
average), there are on this thirteenth parallel a series 
of powerful negro- Arab States, adjoining one another 
across the full breadth of the continent. These ancient 
kingdoms are named : (i) Senaar (on the Blue Nile) ; 
(2) Kordofan (near the White Nile) ; (3) Darfur (in 
the British sphere) ; (4) Wadai (in the French sphere) ; 
(5) Bagirmi (in the French sphere) ; (b) Bornu (British) ; 
(7) Sokoto (British) ; (8) Gando (British) ; (9) The 
Songhay Empire (French) ; (10) The Melle [Mandingo] 
Empire (French) ; (11) Bambara (French) ; and (12) 
Senegambia (French). Of these Senaar at one time 
was an enlightened and powerful nation of blacks, 
Darfur can produce a list of reigning Sultans which 
. carry us back to the remote past ; Wadai was, and still 
is the home of an unconquered Mohamedan people ; 
Bornu, now decadent, was formerly the seat of an 
empire which governed the whole region around Lake 



74 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Chad ; Sokoto and Gando are two divisions of the empire 
of the Fulani and Hausas, which ruled the Western 
Sudan through the nineteenth century ; the Songhay 
Empire attained its zenith in the sixteenth century ; 
the MeUe Empire in the fourteenth century. All these 
states, and others beside them, have enjoyed wide 
dominion or dwindled into mere vassals, according to 
the individual capacity of their sultans and viziers, 
their success in suppressing turbulent factions within 
and beating off the incursions of envious neighbours 
from without. As soon as a community became 
prosperous under an enlightened ruler, it also became 
a tempting prize to some member of his unruly family, 
or to a neighbouring sultan, and sooner or later fell 
a prey either to internal revolution or external attack. 
Thus it comes about that the continent is strewn with 
the remains of destroyed cities, each surrounded by 
signs of a once prosperous agriculture, but now the 
home of nothing but jackals, for it is a traditional 
custom with Mohamedan princes not to rebuild a 
fallen city. 

Having briefly considered the general trend of the 
Arab conquest of the whole Sudan, we will turn our 
attention to those states with which we have recently 
become more intimately connected, namely Sokoto, 
Gando and Bornu, which lie within the borders of 
Nigeria and are administered by British officials. 

Sokoto and Gando are really two unnecessary sub- 
divisions of the Hausa States, which until recently 
formed part of the Fulani Empire and deserve special 
attention. The Hausa race is said to have originated 
in the oasis of Air in the midst of the Sahara, whence 
in the eighth century it was driven south in the course 
of the Arab invasion. Under the leadership of seven 
capable brothers, the offspring of a certain Berber 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 75 

mother, this black tribe spread itself eastwards and 
westwards along the southern margin of the desert 
and founded seven states, which prospered owing to 
the fertihty of the soil, the industry of the population 
and the policy pursued by the seven brothers. In 
course of time the Hausas so increased that seven 
additional provinces were added, and these are jocosely 
called the upstart states by the inhabitants of the more 
ancient settlements. Hausaland was visited and de- 
scribed by Leo Africanus at the end of the fifteenth 
century, when only its rulers professed the Mohamedan 
faith : the bulk of the people were then snake-worship- 
pers, and remained pagans, with a sUght admixture 
of Islamic rites, until the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. It is, in fact, a point of interest in their 
history that they so long escaped conversion to the 
ruhng rehgion, especially as they inhabited a country 
which lay alongside one of the principal highways of 
Arab migration. However, when at last they were 
converted by the Fulani, they embraced Mohame- 
danism with complete satisfaction, and have remained 
its devoted adherents ever since. Their religion had 
a most vivifying effect on the race, as it has invariably 
had on the negroids of Africa, whose too susceptible 
natures require the restraint of a fixed ritual and the 
discipline of a strict code of laws. 

The Hausa is distinctly the business-man of Africa ; 
his looms and dye-pits produce the chief articles of 
internal trade and are often in use as currency in 
adjusting a deal or settling a bargain ; his language is 
the language of commerce throughout the Western 
Sudan. He has no political ambitions and is not a 
governing personality, being of a cheerful, happy- 
go-lucky disposition, good-humouredly contemptuous 
of his pagan customers but without desiring to convert 



76 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

them. To quote Mr. Morel : " His manufacturing skill 
is not only remarkable for Africa ; it puts Europe to 
the blush. For closeness, durability and firmness of 
texture, the products of his looms and dye-pits eclipse 
anything that Manchester can produce. In a land of 
reputed indolence, his activity is as conspicuous as his 
enterprise. He makes an ideal commercial traveller, 
peddling his wares over enormous distances, and 
seldom failing to secure a considerable profit on his 
transactions." It is unfortunate that the original 
history of Hausaland, which was written in Arabic 
characters and included the period from the sixteenth 
to the nineteenth centuries, was dehberately destroyed 
by the conquering Fulani in order to effectually 
obliterate all evidence of Hausa independence. 

But who are these Fulani of whom we so frequently 
read ? 

The answer to this question takes us back through 
the centuries to the story of the remote past of ancient 
Egypt, and the year 2136 B.C., a story which is full 
of interest, but can only be briefly sketched in these 
pages.* In the year named several hordes of Asiatic 
shepherds invaded the land of Egypt and drove into 
the fertile valley of the Nile their herds of hump-backed 
cattle and blob-tailed, roman-nosed sheep. Whether 
they abandoned their Asiatic homes through drought 
or by reason of land-hunger in an over-populated 
area is unknown, at any rate their incursion was 
stoutly resisted by the local inhabitants, and a long 
and sanguinary conflict arose in the land, converting 
the nomadic shepherds into warriors and statesmen 
fighting for their existence. In the end the invaders 
established their supremacy, and are recorded in history 

* It is very well told in - Affaiis of West Africa," by E. D. Morel. 
Heinemann, 1902. 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 77 

as the " Shepherd Kings " whose dynasty endured for 
five centuries. They appear to have ruled with wisdom 
what was undoubtedly the greatest state of the then 
civilised world. 

However, in the year 1636 B.C. they were over- 
thrown by the ancient Theban dynasty, and had again 
to migrate with their herds in search of pastures new. 
They struck southwards up the Nile into the Sudan 
[" The land of the blacks,"] and wandered, some along 
the Blue Nile into the Abyssinian mountains where 
they became the ancestors of the Galas and Bahima 
of Uganda, some others away westwards across the 
continent to the Niger. Here they scattered and 
resumed the nomadic Hfe, chiefly in the districts about 
the sources of the Senegal and Gambia rivers, where 
their herds found suitable pasturage. In all their 
wanderings amidst inferior races and strange surround- 
ings they retained their pride of race, their faith in the 
bull-worship of their ancestors, their stories of ancient 
Hebrew laws and customs, handed down from genera- 
tion to generation. More important still, they kept 
their Asiatic blood pure by never permitting their 
daughters to wed any but men of their own race, 
though the men also took wives from the aboriginal 
populations amongst whom they dwelt. 

This remarkable people must have reached West 
Africa long before the dawn of the Christian era, 
yet they retain to this day the characteristics of their 
nomad ancestry, and are known in the Sudan as the 
Fulani (plural). They are loosely scattered in small 
groups over a vast area, dwelhng with their flocks 
and herds amongst pagan or Mohamedan tribes as 
the case may be, ruHng over some, subject to others, 
strict followers of the Prophet in general, though 
pagans in a very few inaccessible districts. Their 



y^ SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

conversion to Mohamedanism occurred in the sixteenth 
century. 

As regards appearance the pure-bred Fulani are 
still of an Eastern type, their copper-coloured skin, 
straight hair, clean-cut features and well-developed 
skulls differing widely from those of the African races. 
The women may be described as quite good-looking. 
The numerous mixed progeny of Fulani men and 
negresses has introduced a strain of blood which has 
been of advantage to the lower races throughout the 
land. Everywhere the Fulani are distinguishable 
by their fine linen, haughty manners, cleanly habits 
and irreproachable orthodoxy. 

In 1802, after centuries of mild subjection to 
pagans, the Fulani of Hausaland started a revolt 
which had far-reaching consequences. Inspired by a 
religious enthusiast named Othman Dan Fodio, the 
scattered groups of herdsmen assembled beneath the 
banner of Islam, attacked and subjugated all the 
Hausa States and founded an empire which extended 
from Lake Chad to Senegal. They so communicated 
the fervour of their intense religious feelings to their 
converts that a Christian missionary has recently 
admitted that " To the Hausa what is in the Koran 
is of God, and what is not in the Koran is not worth 
knowing." Othman, the leader of this remarkable 
movement, died in 1817 in a fit of reHgious mania, 
and was succeeded by his sons, of whom only Sultan 
Bello was a capable man. The Fulani Empire, deca- 
dent and latterly pernicious, made way in 1903 for 
British rule under Sir Frederick Lugard. 

We will next turn our attention to the beginnings 
of European enterprise in West Africa. 

Dismissing the unverified story put forward by 
certain French writers to prove that a colony of hardy 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 79 

Dieppe fishermen was established on the Guinea Coast 
in the fourteenth century, we commence the narrative 
in 1456, when certain of Prince Henry of Portugal's 
patient adventurers discovered the mouths of the 
Senegal and Gambia rivers. They returned with 
vague stories of the fabulous wealth of Timbuktu. 
A chartered company was started in Lisbon which on 
its first venture imported a cargo of 200 slaves, 
and the Portuguese commenced the traffic in black 
humanity which was carried on uninterruptedly during 
four centuries : to them belongs the distinction of 
being the first European nation to begin it and the 
last to leave it off. They built forts along the West 
Coast and endeavoured to open up trade with the far 
interior, but there is no authentic record of their having 
estabHshed more than a precarious intercourse with the 
natives through whom they bargained for slaves. 
Being first in possession and jealous of interference 
by rivals, they bent their energies chiefly to strengthen- 
ing their monopoly, and were so far successful as to 
retain it for a century. 

But sooner or later a monopoly which has to be 
fought for by armed trading ships is sure to be con- 
tested by adventurous outsiders, and we accordingly 
find that in 1550 (a few years before Queen EHzabeth 
ascended our throne) a guild of London merchants 
fitted out a small fleet and sent it to the Guinea Coast 
under the command of Captain Thomas Windham, 
a younger son of Sir Thomas Windham, the direct 
ancestor of the present Wyndhams of Pet worth House, 
Sussex. He was noted as a successful navigator, and 
was therefore put in charge of this first British trading 
voyage to the West Coast, his quest being gold. He 
made three separate voyages, and on one of them 
brought home " 150 lbs. of gold," which at present 



So SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

prices would mean a sum of £yooo. In his journal 
he records in 1552 : " Here, by the way, it is to be 
observed that the Portuguese were much offended with 
this our new trade into Barbary ; and both in our 
voyage the year before and also in this, gave out 
in England, through the merchants, that if they took 
us in those parts they would use us as their mortal 
enemies." 

Undaunted by threats, a certain John Lok under- 
took a couple of years later a trading voyage which he 
described in minute detail. He owned three ships 
and some smaller boats, and took two months to reach 
the Gold Coast. He found the natives willing to 
bargain, and, in exchange for cloth and other articles, 
brought back a valuable cargo — 400 lbs. of gold, 36 
cwt. of pepper and 250 tusks of ivory, some of which 
weighed 90 lbs. each — so Master Lok's voyage was a 
success, in spite of Portuguese opposition and without 
a cargo of slaves. Others, especially Towrson, followed 
this trade with vigour and profit ; but to Sir John 
Hawkins belongs the discredit of being the first English- 
man to embark a cargo of slaves, which he sold in 
America, notwithstanding an indignant remonstrqince 
from Queen Elizabeth. The year of the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada (1588) saw the first British Chartered 
Company launched, and about the same time there 
occurred a minor scramble amongst the European 
Powers for stations on the West Coast, a scramble 
which continued spasmodically through the seven- 
teenth century. Spain crushed Portugal and laid 
claim to her colonies ; the Dutch threw off the 
yoke of Spain and seized them ; the Danes engaged 
with alacrity in what was termed the " new " (i.e. 
slave) trade ; the Germans founded their Brandenberg 
Company ; the French laid the foundation of their 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 8i 

extensive West African Empire. Each of the rivals 
built forts along the coast, the French under the Sieur 
Brue being more enterprising towards the interior 
than all the others combined. The British Company- 
seems to have neglected its opportunity and was more 
or less a failure. Each set of traders held parchments 
engrossed in magnificent language, signed by their 
respective sovereigns, granting to each the " monopoly 
of all trade from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope 
and beyond;" the consequent jealousy, confusion and 
lawlessness were indescribable. Here was the buc- 
caneers' opportunity, at a period when big events were 
taking place in other parts of the world, and misdeeds 
on the Gold Coast remained unrecorded and unpunished ; 
how can we be surprised if the reports of the white man's 
behaviour, which reached the interior through native 
slave-raiders, disgusted Mohamedan missionaries, and 
made them curse the white man and his gin ? 

Thus the seventeenth century closes with the over- 
sea slave trade in full swing, it being a far more lucra- 
tive business than gold, ivory or pepper. The planta- 
tions of America and the West Indies were growing 
apace, their demand for labour annually increased, 
so that during the eighteenth century we find the 
French, Dutch and British strugghng for supremacy 
along the West Coast. Of these, the French from 
the Senegal River continued to display the greater 
interest in the warlike races which interposed between 
themselves and Timbuktu ; the British were estab- 
lished on the Gambia, and held seventeen forts on the 
Gold Coast, but these were mostly redupUcated by 
rival Dutch establishments, with here and there an 
additional French or Portuguese fort ; so there was 
no monopoly for any nation in the slave trade. 

Should my readers be inclined to surmise that these 

F 



82 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

rival forts were centres from which radiated the civiHs- 
ing influence of the Christian into the recesses of the 
Dark Continent, let him peruse some of the eighteenth- 
century literature on this subject and the illusion 
will soon be dispelled. The hfe and habits of the 
Mohamedans were shining lights of virtue compared 
with that of the white men. A conservative estimate 
puts the number of negroes shipped across the Atlantic 
in the year 1748 at the total of 97,000 ; another 
computes at 200,000 the number of blacks annually 
exported during each year of the last decade of the 
eighteenth century, and it has been calculated that 
at least seven millions crossed the seas between 1700 
and 1800. Those who are acquainted with the rate 
of mortality which must occur in the raiding of an 
inland village for slaves, in the caravan journey to 
the coast and in the holds of sailing-ships, will realise 
that, for every slave safely landed ten or more were 
sacrificed, and that this draft of blacks represented 
a serious drain on the country. In the end there was 
an awakening of the British conscience ; the voice of 
declamation rose loud in the land ; and Abohtion was 
carried in 1807, followed by similar enactments in all 
other civilised countries by 1815. 

Looking with dispassionate eyes on the hot con- 
troversies of those days, we perceive that Abohtion 
was a necessity, not from mere sentimentalism, nor 
because the planters were unkind to their slaves as 
was often falsely alleged, nor even because slavery 
is reckoned "immoral;" but because the demand 
for negroes inflicted an atrocious injury on the nations 
of Africa and made progress on that Continent im- 
possible. Moreover, the cheap liquor and gunpowder 
which were exchanged for slaves were gradually sap- 
ping the energies of the coastwise populations. 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 83 

The abolition of over-sea slavery happens also to 
coincide with the era of legitimate exploration. 

If individual heroism, magnificent courage, an 
indomitable will and an optimism which no adversity 
could disappoint, are the emblems of a great explorer, 
then Mungo Park ranks amongst the highest. His 
achievements should be read in his biography by 
Joseph Thomson, the life of an explorer by another 
explorer, because only such an author can convince 
one of the hardships which Mungo Park endured. 
In 1795 he started from the Gambia River with a couple 
of native servants, two donkeys and a horse, plunged 
into the unknown interior, and emerged in 1799 after 
exploring 300 miles of the middle Niger. He was 
ill equipped for such an expedition, which had been 
the death of many a brave man before him. 

" Think of Park, and picture to yourself the position 
of a lonely European wandering about inland Western 
Africa in a thick blue fustian coat, with gilt buttons, 
keeping his precious notes in the crown of a top-hat, 
and kicked, buffeted, spat upon, treated with con- 
tumely, subjected to every insult, over and over again 
a slave, exposed for hours at a time in a burning sun 
without water, often on the verge of starvation, racked 
by disease, and in so miserable a plight upon many 
occasions that death would have been a welcome relief 
— yet triumphing over everything, and finally return- 
ing, notes and all, to his own land."* 

Undaunted, he set out again in 1804, at the request 
of the British Government, and navigated more than 
a thousand miles of the Niger in a rickety boat which 
he built himself, meeting his death at the hands of the 
natives in the rapids of Busa. 

* " Affairs of West Africa " 



84 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

For some years after this fatality all endeavours 
to reach the Niger from the West Coast failed, and 
resulted in the death of the explorers from disease and 
hardships. It was therefore decided to make an 
attempt from the Mediterranean, to follow the route 
of the Arab conquerors and utihse if possible the native 
caravan trade as a means of crossing the Sahara from 
TripoH. Accordingly three Englishmen, Clapperton, 
Denham and Oudney (a naval captain, a major, and 
a doctor) started in 1821, under the auspicies of the 
British Government. Every sort of difficulty was put 
in their way by the local merchants, who suspected 
them as trading rivals ; they took six months to journey 
from Tripoli to Fezzan, where they were further delayed 
seven months more before they could commence the 
desert march : it was therefore with great delight that 
they beheld the gleaming waters of Lake Chad in 
February 1823. Having at last penetrated into 
negroland, they were much gratified by the warm 
welcome extended to them by the reigning Sultan of 
Bornu. 

" It was in a sense a new world which the explorers 
had entered, a world of absorbing interest, where 
Eastern magnificence and display mingled with the 
naked barbarism of Africa ; where semi-arabised 
potentates went a-warring with mail-clad knights, 
and powerful barons brought their contingent of re- 
tainers to assist their liege-lord in his campaigns of 
plunder and conquest. The travellers had left nine- 
teenth-century England, had plunged into the desert 
and had emerged therefrom amid a feudalism which 
recalled the Middle Ages. . . . They were the first 
white men to reach the Chad, to discover the Shari, 
to explore Bornu, Sokoto and part of Kanem, and 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 85 

to describe, however indifferently, the wonderful 
social fabric, the picturesque civilisation, teeming with 
energy and industrialism, which existed, and exists 
in the upper portion of the Niger basin."* 

Clapperton alone survived to tell the tale of his 
journey through the beautiful country, adorned with 
plantations of cotton, tobacco and indigo, rows of 
date palms, magnificent herds of cattle, and to describe 
the industry of the Hausa inhabitants, their proficiency 
in weaving, dyeing and churning, their aptitude as 
traders ; and to expatiate on the qualities of the ruling 
Fulani, who encouraged industry and protected trade 
routes with such success that the city of Kano became 
the greatest emporium of Central Africa. Such was 
the impression produced on the rough-and-ready 
sailor, who was too ready to accept the Fulani version 
of the prosperity which he beheld. If, however, we 
wish to possess a scientific knowledge of the country 
and peoples of Nigeria, we may turn from the glowing 
descriptions of Captain Clapperton to the five thought- 
ful volumes in which Dr. Barth, a cultivated, genial 
German, recorded his wanderings from 1850 to 1855. 

The expedition which he joined was organised by 
Lord Palmerston, with Dr. Richardson as its leader, 
for the purpose of promoting commercial intercourse 
with the states which Clapperton had visited. Barth 
was the lecturer at the University of Berlin on 
Comparative Geography and Colonial Commerce ; he 
had lately published his " Wanderings Round the 
Mediterranean," which comprised a journey through 
Barbary in the company of Arabs ; and he was per- 
mitted to join Richardson's expedition, provided he 
was willing to contribute £200 towards his personal 

* " Affairs of West Africa." 



86 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

expenses. But Richardson died of fever in Bornu, 
in March, 185 1, so, in the words of Barth, " Her 
Majesty's Government honoured me with their con- 
fidence, and, in authorising me to carry out the objects 
of the expedition, placed sufficient means at my 
disposal for the purpose. The position in which I 
was thus placed must be my excuse for undertaking, 
after the successful accomplishment of my labours, 
the difficult task of relating them in a language not 
my own." Such was the modest preface in which 
he introduced to the British public the dehghtful 
pages which convey a truer insight into the condition 
of the Sudan than can be gained from any other source. 
Barth was qualified by temperament and years of 
previous study for the task he undertook ; his ac- 
quaintance with the history of Africa and his famiharity 
with the traditions of its rehgions placed him on a 
footing of equahty with the educated Mohamedans 
whom he met ; his sincerity and straight dealing 
disarmed the intrigues of suspicious fanatics ; and 
wherever he tarried he made friends who were willing 
to forward him on his travels and glad to see him when 
he returned. He was a naturalist, a linguist and a 
scientific geographer. 

Throughout his volumes one is struck by his intelli- 
gent observations on men and things. There are no 
cheap reflections, no endeavours to " make up " a 
book ; his triumphant enthusiasm at each discovery 
of importance is obviously genuine ; and his disappoint- 
ment when obliged to stay in some native town with 
nothing to do is best expressed in his words : " The 
little information which I had been able to gather at 
this place was not sufficient to give my restless spirit 
its proper nourishment, and I felt, therefore, mentally 
depressed." 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 87 

Starting from Tripoli, Earth's itinerary comprised 
Fezzan, Agades, Zinder, Kano, Bornu, Adamawa, 
Bagirmi, Logon, Sokoto, Gando, Say, Timbuktu, Gogo, 
Lake Chad, Kanem, and Bilma ; it occupied five 
consecutive years ; and as the States and cities which 
he visited and studied have since been more or less 
occupied by France, England, or Germany, Barth's 
are the only unprejudiced notes we shall ever have 
of Nigeria under native rule. He had no political 
interests to subserve ; in fact, he made it a stipulation 
of his engagement that the mission should be non- 
political ; yet the lesson which every chapter of his 
book emphasises is that, in spite of the picturesque and, 
in a few instances, capable government of the Sultans 
and viziers, the state of the country was bad, hfe and 
property were insecure, the stabihty of all institu- 
tions was precarious, slave-raiding was universal and 
wealthy communities were continually the prey of 
plunderers and freebooters. Even within the few 
years of his personal experience he several times attests 
the total ruin of prosperous towns and districts in 
which he had been hospitably entertained on previous 
occasions. Native rulers deplored with him the exist- 
ence of this state of things, but neither the enligthened 
Vizier of Bornu nor the Fulani Sultans of Sokoto and 
Gando had the will or the power to correct the evil, 
or even to mitigate its effects. Each princeling — 
and princehngs are numerous throughout Nigeria 
— maintained himself, his court and his wealth as 
best he could from year to year, without concerning 
himself with the welfare of the general community. 
There was evident prosperity in many parts, because 
Nature had so bountifully endowed these lands and 
the Hausa population was really industrious ; but, 
on the other hand, the benefits to be derived from the 



88 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

gifts of Nature and the works of man were frequently 
sacrificed by the incompetence and weakness of the 
governing families. 

Of the first negro state seen by Barth he says tlie 
vegetation and crops were abundant, the villages 
neat and prosperous, cotton weaving was common, 
" the whole country had 'an interesting and cheerful 
aj^pearance, villages succeeding each other with only 
short intervals of thick underwood, manifesting every- 
where the unmistakable marks of the comfortable, 
pleasant sort of life led by the natives . . . the dwel- 
lings shaded with spreading trees and enlivened with 
groups of children, goats, fowls, ]:)igeons and, where 
a little wealth had been accumulated, a horse or a 
pack-ox. The inhabitants were of cheerful tempera- 
ments, bent upon enjoying life, rather given to women, 
dance and song, but without any disgusting excess." 
This state had not yet been conquered by the Fulani 
when Barth traversed it in the company of a caravan 
of 3700 camels carrying salt to Kano. On nearing the 
capital, "almost all tlie people who met us saluted us 
most kindly and cheerfully ; and I was particularly 
amused by the following form of salutation : God bless 
you: gently, gently: how strange! Only a few proud 
Fulani very unlike their brethren in tlie West, passed 
us without a salute . . . the villages are here scattered 
about in the most agreeable and convenient way, as 
farming villages ought always to be, but which is 
practicable only in a country in a state of security." 
He estimated the population of Kano city at 30,000, 
of whom 4000 were Fulani, and did not think that 
the latter governed this particular city o]^pressively, 
though the possession of wealth and comfort during 
two generations had impaired their characteristics 
and made them cowardly and incapable of protecting 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 89 

the villages at a distance from the city. The city 
walls and fortifications (kept in the best repair) enclosed 
an immense area of ground, in order that a supply of 
corn for the inhabitants might be grown during a long 
siege ; the market was immensely crowded, the export 
of cotton cloth, dyed with indigo, being prodigious. 
"If we consider that this industry is not carried on 
here, as in Europe, in immense establishments, degrad- 
ing man to the meanest condition of life, but that it 
gives employment and support to families without 
compelhng them to sacrifice their domestic habits, 
we must presume that Kano ought to be one of the 
happiest countries in the world ; and so it is as long 
as its governor, too often lazy and indolent, is able 
to defend its inhabitants from the cupidity of their 
neighbours." 

From the principal city in Hausaland to Kuka, the 
capital of Bornu, the journey was made along paths from 
village to village, as there is no such thing as a direct 
road. On the border of these two empires predatory 
excursions were the order of the day, and, as Barth 
happened to make the journey twice, he records : 

" We had a most interesting and cheerful scene of 
African life in the open, straggling village of Kalimari, 
where numerous herds of cattle were being watered 
at the wells ; but how melancholy, how mournful 
became the recollection of the busy, animated scene 
which I then witnessed when, three years and a half 
later, as I travelled again through this district, the 
whole village, which presented such a spectacle of 
happiness and well-being, had disappeared, and an 
insecure wilderness, greatly infested by robbers, had 
succeeded to the abode of man." 

The difference of type between the Hausa and the 



90 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

black of Bornu became marked as Barth crossed the 
frontier, the former being of Hvely spirit and cheerful 
countenance, the latter melancholy and brutal, with 
broad face, wide nostrils and large bones. Yet in a 
bygone age Bornu held the headship of an immense 
empire, including Kanem, Bagirmi and other states ; 
and its Sultans still maintained the outward show of 
barbaric splendour which Clapperton described. But, 
as Barth relates, it was in the fifties in full decadence. 
" The condition of the finest part of the country is a 
disgrace to its present rulers, who have nothing to do 
but transfer thither a few hundreds of their lazy slaves 
and estabHsh them in a fortified place, whereupon the 
natives would immediately gather round them and 
change this fine country from an impenetrable jungle 
into rich fields, producing not only grain, but also 
immense quantities of cotton and indigo." 

Arrived in Kuka, Barth was well received by the 
Vizier, allotted a spacious abode near the palace and 
introduced to the learned men of the place, with whose 
help he obtained access to the chronicles of the Kings 
dating from the ninth century. Thus he succeeded 
in sending to Europe a copy of the abridgment of the 
whole history of Bornu from the earliest times down 
to Ibrahim, the last offspring of the royal family, who 
was on the throne when the previous English expedi- 
tion visited Kuka. From this it appears that in the 
thirteenth century the Prince of Kanem wielded the 
strength of a vigorous empire and extended his in- 
fluence to the Dongola province of Egypt. His reign 
was succeeded by civil wars and regicides, which ended 
in the seat of power being transferred to Bornu by the 
conquering tribe, who reduced Kanem to a province. 
On the whole the sixteenth century ^was the most glorious 
period of the Bornu empire, adorned as it was by two 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 91 

capable Sultans. Then followed a quiet period during 
which pious and peaceful kings occupied the throne, 
and old age seemed gradually to gain on the kingdom ; 
the last blow fell when the Fulani occupied the centre 
of the country in 1809, and a stranger of Arab descent 
founded a new dynasty. 

About the Vizier (Prime Minister) in 1851 Barth has 
much to say. He was a charming, cultivated and amiable 
gentleman, but so fond of the other sex that he possessed 
a harem of between three and four hundred slaves. 

" In assembling this immense number of female 
companions for the entertainment of his leisure hours 
he adopted a scientific principle ; in fact, a credulous 
person might suppose that he regarded his harem only 
from a scientific point of view, as a sort of ethnological 
museum — doubtless of a peculiarly interesting kind — 
which he had brought together in order to impress 
upon his memory the distinguishing features of each 
tribe. I have often observed that, in speaking with 
him of the different tribes of negroland, he was at times 
struck with the novelty of a name, lamenting that he 
had not yet had a specimen of that tribe in his harem, 
and giving orders at once to his servants to endeavour 
to procure a perfect sample of the missing kind. I 
must also say that, notwithstanding the great number 
and variety of the women who shared his attention, 
he seemed to take a hearty interest in each of them : 
at least, I remember that he grieved most sincerely 
for the loss of one who died in the winter of 1851. 
Poor Haj Beshir ! He was put to death in the last 
month of 1853, leaving seventy-three sons alive, not 
counting the daughters and the number of children 
which may be supposed to die in such an establishment 
without reaching maturity/* 



92 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

That is one side of Arab life, in the days of its 
decadence ; but if we desire to be impartial, we shall 
not pass judgment on this phase without also consider- 
ing what conditions Arab civihsation replaced ; and 
above all we shall guard against the error of appl5Aing 
to negro states the standards of twentieth century 
England. Conceive then the sort of life led by the 
weltering masses of Central Africa during the cen- 
turies previous to Arab conquests ; how they lived, 
propagated and died, shut off from any sort of elevating 
influence, unlettered, absorbed in the worship of a 
disgusting local fetishism, practising horrible forms of 
human sacrifices and rejoicing in such unmentionable 
cruelties as only a witch-doctor can invent. That such 
was roughly the state of negroland before its religious 
awakening may be inferred from our knowledge of 
those tribes amongst whom Mohamedanism is to this 
day unknown. The author has dwelt amidst such 
tribes, and knows that the picture as drawn above is 
not exaggerated. But, having accorded a full measure 
of praise to the Mohamedan conquerors who lifted 
the Sudan from disorganised confusion to comparative 
civilisation, it must be remembered that their aspira- 
tions were and are strictly limited, and that they are 
not capable of further progress alone. 

Meanwhile the days of the white slaver's iniquities 
are passed, and the days of Mohamedan potentates 
are numbered. For the nineteenth century wit- 
nessed a complete change in the attitude of mind of 
the white man towards the blacks ; and thus it may 
come to pass that the European will in the future 
atone for the injury which he inflicted in former times. 
In India, Egypt, and the Egyptian Sudan, Great 
Britain is accomplishing a splendid work of regeneration. 
Its benefits are now extended to Nigeria, where an 



THE STORY OF NIGERIA 93 

even greater success may be predicted. For the rule 
of the British Administrator promotes the interests 
of the governed to a far greater extent than anything 
previously dreamed of by any native prince during 
the centuries which have gone before. 

We will now deal with the acquisition of Nigeria 
by the British, and describe Vandeleur's share in the 
work of a successful expedition. 



CHAPTER V 
THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 

See map facing page 120 

The story of our West African colonies during the 
decade 1884 to 1895 cannot be studied without a feehng 
of pained wonder at the bhndness of British Cabinets 
and of hearty admiration at the foresight and wisdom 
of the Governments of France and Germany and now 
that the story is ten years old and nearly forgotten it 
may not be out of place to review our mistakes and 
realise the necessity of vigilant watchfulness in other 
remote parts — as for instance in the Far East — before 
it is too late. 

In the previous chapter a sketch of Sudan history 
was outlined from the ninth century to 1855, when it 
was visited by Barth under the auspices of Lord 
Palmerston. He travelled through the country and 
recorded his observations in a readable book, which 
was nevertheless left unread by the Ministers respon- 
sible for British interests in those parts. Their igno- 
rance of the Sudan, with such a mass of verified 
evidence available, affords but a feeble excuse for the 
apathy which deprived us of many rich provinces, and we 
may well ask why British Ministers should be unaware 
of what was well known to French and German states- 
men ? In order to realise how much our colonies 
were neglected it is only necessary to study maps 
which show European possessions in Africa in 1884 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 95 

and 1902 respectively.* They illustrate more com- 
pletely than pages of letterpress the results of the 
scramble for Africa between the years in question, and 
are specially instructive as regards the West Coast, 
where Great Britain sat still and looked on wliilst 
France filched from her the hinterlands of her colonies 
of Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, and Ger- 
many ousted her from the Cameroons. 

It would be foolish to reproach these two Powers ; 
their actions were legitimate and reflected credit on 
the statesmen who conceived and the officials who 
carried out their policy. The oft-repeated statement 
that they are incapable of managing negro colonies 
is not borne out by facts. The truth is that, whilst 
we in England were wranghng over Home Rule for 
Ireland, the French and Germans were actually estab- 
lishing their rule in Africa. They accomplished a 
task which we neglected, in spite of our prior occupancy 
and boasted Imperialism, and are fully entitled to 
the reward of their labours and the success of their 
enterprise. With admirable foresight and courage 
French officers undertook the exploration of a conti- 
nent, made treaties with hundreds of native rulers, 
now subjects of the Republic, extended her frontiers 
in all directions, took care to establish themselves 
at the back of each of our West African possessions, 
and this in spite of our salaried local governors, who 
were aware of the encroachments, but were not per- 
mitted to interfere for fear of hurting foreign sus- 
ceptibilities. Practically nothing was done to safe- 
guard our interests during this period of laissez /aire, 
so fatal to the traditions of a governing race, so costly 
when the consequences are recognised and have to be 
remedied. 

* Sec two maps at end of book. 



96 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

In 1865 a ''strong" Committee of the House of 
Commons unanimously resolved " that all further 
British extension of territory or assumption of govern- 
ment or new treaty offering protection to native tribes 
would be inexpedient," and this policy held the field 
for years. It was dictated not by feelings of mag- 
nanimity or humanity, but " through craven fears 
of being great," and was a direct encouragement 
to foreign aggression — especially German — about which 
a few remarks will not be out of place in these pages. 
Prince Bismarck at first treated our Government with 
forbearance and scrupulous consideration when he 
commenced to found a German colony in South West 
Africa, but he grew tired of our unbusinesslike methods 
and peevisli complaints, and adopted a different pro- 
cedure with regard to his second venture; indeed, 
the story of his acquisition of the Cameroons deserves 
to be told as a sample of British ineptitude. The 
Cameroon Mountains (13,000 feet high) happen to 
possess the only salubrious climate near the West 
Coast of Africa, and other ranges of high altitude 
and fertility are found in the interior of the province. 
In 1864 Burton raised the British flag unofficially 
over a portion of these hills, foreseeing the future value 
of a climate so suitable for European habitation. 
Mission and trading stations were estabUshed, but 
not formally acknowledged by our Government, 
though they proved of such benefit to the neighbouring 
tribes that the chiefs along the coast petitioned to be 
included in the British settlement. Their prayers 
remained unanswered when sent through the Consul, 
so at last, in 1879, ^^e of the Cameroon Kings ventured 
to write the following letter direct to Queen Victoria : 



(( 



We, your servants, have joined together, and 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 97 

thought it better to write you a nice long letter which 
will tell you about our wishes. We wish to have your 
laws in our territories. We want to have every fashion 
altered ; also we will do according to your Consul's 
word. Plenty wars here in our country. Plenty 
murder, and plenty idol-worshippers. Perhaps these 
lines of our writing will look to you as an idle tale. We 
have spoken to the Enghsh Consul plenty times about 
having an English Government here. We never have 
answer from you, so we wish to write to you ourselves. 
When we know about Calabar River, how they have 
English laws in their towns, and how they have put 
away their superstitions, oh, we shall be very glad 
to be like Calabar River." 

The British residents, had they been consulted, 
could have proved that the peace of the Calabar River 
and the insecurity of the rest of the country accounted 
for the Kings' desire for a change, yet four years elapsed 
and it was not till 1883 that the Foreign and Colonial 
Offices decided to place the Cameroons under the 
British flag, and even after this decision had been 
reached months were allowed to slip before action 
was taken. On May 16, 1884, Consul Hewett was 
instructed to proclaim the formal annexation, but this 
official proved no swifter than his superiors, and was 
beaten on the post by a German under the following 
circumstances. On April 20, or a month before the 
British Colonial Office gave any instructions. Lord 
Granville received a communication from the German 
Embassy in London which ought to have aroused the 
energy of a Secretary of State who had quite recently 
been deprived of South West Africa by Bismarck. 
He was informed that Dr. Nachtigal had been " com- 
missioned to visit the West Coast of Africa in a gun- 

G 



98 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

boat, and conduct negotiations connected with certain 
questions on behalf of Germany " ; and he was further 
requested ** to cause the authorities in the British 
possessions to be furnished with suitable instructions." 
In reply an assurance was given that the British 
Colonial authorities would be enjoined to give all 
possible assistance to the German envoy. Accordingly 
the Mowe, with Dr. Nachtigal on board, accompanied 
by the Elizabeth, anchored off the Los Islands {British) 
and proceeded past the Gold Coast (British) to Togo- 
land, where the German flag was hoisted on July 2. 
Togoland has since become one of the most flourishing 
httle colonies in Africa, and proves beyond doubt 
that Germans are not incapable of founding a paying 
colony. 

After this easy success the Mowe steamed on to the 
Cameroons, where everything had been prepared by 
the four German traders settled in the place. At mid- 
night meetings, arranged with the native Kings, who 
were tired of waiting for their reply from Great Britain, 
treaties were negotiated and signed handing over the 
whole country to German protection, and Consul 
Hewett, who had been the reverse of prompt, arrived 
on the scene five days after the German flag had been 
hoisted conspicuously over what was all but a British 
colony. Under German management the Cameroons 
have since developed into a valuable possession, with 
a hinterland extending to Lake Chad, deliberately 
cutting off British extension towards the Nile. The 
event was hailed with paroxysms of dehght in Ger- 
many, whilst in England futile reproaches were heaped 
upon the Gladstone Ministry for its indifference to 
British interests. But, after all, the Cabinet only 
reflected the prevailing spirit in the Houses of Parlia- 
ment, a spirit which had sat down under Majuba three 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 99 

years previously, and which Bismarck had gauged 
before he sent Dr. Nachtigal out in the Mowe. In the 
end Bismarck paid £4000 for our Cameroons Mission 
Station of forty years' growth, whereas we pocketed 
a humihation, condoned a piece of sharp practice and 
, meekly acknowledged German sovereignty. 

From such an episode it is pleasant to turn to the 
neighbouring province of Nigeria, and dwell upon the 
services rendered to his country by one man — Sir 
George Goldie — who, fortunately for England, was free 
from the blighting control of a British Cabinet. Even 
as Cecil Rhodes added Rhodesia to our Empire, Goldie 
gave us Nigeria, and of the two Nigeria is the more 
valuable, and was the more difficult to acquire. George 
Taubman Goldie, born in the Isle of Man, son of the 
Speaker of the House of Keys, was educated at Wool- 
wich, and held a commission for a short time in the 
Royal Engineers. He subsequently took to travelling 
in Africa, and first visited the Niger in 1877. With 
true insight he perceived the potential value of this 
great river and devoted his life and abilities to securing 
it for his country. 

It had been explored by MacGregor Laird in 1832, 
by British gunboats in 1841 and by Baikie in 1854, 
but the withdrawal of the parhamentary grant and 
the destruction of Lokoja by the natives caused the 
abandonment of ah enterprise in this region, and Goldie 
only found a few rival traders conducting a precarious 
business, without intelligence or knowledge of the 
markets of Hausaland. His first step was to induce 
the British to amalgamate their interests and form 
themselves into a trading company, which under his 
management became in two years a concern with a 
capital of £125,000, and was pressing for a royal 
charter. This was refused on the ground of insuffi- 



100 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

ciency of capital, so Goldie set to work to increase 
the amount to £1,000,000, and at last in 1886 the 
charter was granted, together with governing rights 
over Hausaland and Bornu. In 1887 the K.C.M.G. 
was bestowed upon this able administrator, and he 
became a viceroy in fact, though not in name, a viceroy 
whose dominion must needs be created from the founda- 
tions upwards, in the face of persistent rivals backed 
by the purses and diplomacy of two European Powers. 
The measure of his success compared with that of our 
other coast colonies can be seen on the map and judged 
from the annual reports on this tit-bit of Northern 
Africa ; the story of how he accomplished his ends 
has not yet been given to the public. All that we 
know of this strong and patient man during liis twenty 
years' task on the Niger is that he succeeded. French 
officers openly occupied several of his outlying dis- 
tricts ; German civilians, such as Herr Flegel, accepted 
British hospitality in order to steal a march on their 
entertainers and occupy territory behind their backs ; 
but Goldie triumphed over all, and on January i, 
1900, handed to the British Government the provinces 
which he acquired. The difficulties he surmounted 
in London, Berlin and Paris, without mentioning 
those in Africa, would fill a whole volume, but he alone 
could write it with accuracy. 

Meanwhile, owing to the fact that Vandeleur was 
employed during the most important military expedi- 
tion conducted by Sir George, we possess a detailed 
description of the operations and are afforded a gUmpse 
of how he set about his work. I refer to the first 
expedition against the Fulani, which resulted in our 
dominion over Hausaland. It illustrates how fore- 
thought should be applied to soldiering, in order to 
accomplish great ends with small means ; it was a 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA loi 

conspicuous success, though it might have been merely 
a " regrettable incident ; " and I propose to relate its 
story as recorded by Vandeleur, who took a prominent 
part in it. In October 1896, Sir George Goldie's 
plans were matured and he was in London, selecting 
officers for active service in Nigeria. Vandeleur, 
recently returned from Uganda with a good record, 
was just the sort of man he wanted, so the formalities 
were quickly got through and, overjoyed at this unex- 
pected prospect of more fighting, the young Guardsman 
embarked at Liverpool with other special service 
officers on November 28. Amongst them were his 
friends Major Cunningham and Leutenant Cecil 
Pereira of the Coldstream Guards. He had on this 
occasion an additional motive for the keen interest 
he always took in a campaign in that Sir George had 
recommended him to the Times as its correspondent 
with the expedition. 

The voyage was eventless and dreary, a monotonous 
succession of stoppages and delays at various West 
African ports, and it was not until December 26 that 
the ss. Coomassie dropped anchor in the For^ados 
River, the most westerly branch of the Niger delta. 
The whole coast is here intersected by creeks, back- 
waters and tiny channels, choked and veiled by endless 
mangrove swamps, through which the Niger oozes 
and trickles to the sea in an ignominious fashion. 

The expedition was due to start from the head- 
quarters of Northern Nigeria, at the beginning of 
January 1897, so the officers on the Coomassie were 
but just in time. They found a steam launch waiting 
to convey them up the river to Lokoja, an important 
town built at the junction of the Niger and Benue, 
the military headquarters of the Protectorate. The 
place was full of life and activity in view of the coming 



102 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

campaign, and nnmcrous stern-wheeled steamers were 
moored to the river bank receiving their suppUes of 
rations and reserve ammunition, though nothing as 
regards equipment and organisation had been left 
to chance or to the last moment. Sir George Goldie 
had bent his energies towards perfecting the organisa- 
tion of a fighting force during several years, offering 
us an example of how brains and money can be econo- 
mically applied to military policy, and a contrast 
to the makeshifts of British Cabinets, drifting into war 
yet preaching peace. 

Here Vandeleur learned the objective of the ex- 
pedition, which had hitherto been kept a profound 
secret even fron\ the officers engaged. It was to be 
directed against the powerful State of Nupe, situated 
on both banks of the Niger north of Lokoja, a depen- 
dency of the Fulani Empire. The Emir of Nupe, 
himself a Fulah, had sent emissaries from his capital, 
Bida, to the neighbouring Emir of Ilorin and the King 
of Busa, to persuade them to join forces with him in 
order to turn the white men out of the country. The 
King of Busa declined, preferring to hold to his treaty 
with the British company, and had even gone so far as 
to denounce the conspiracy to Sir George Goldie. The 
latter saw that a trial of strength between the Moha- 
medan rulers and himself was at last inevitable — it had 
been pending for eighteen years — and wisely decided 
to prove in a decisive manner who should be master. 

Hitherto the company, although it had engaged 
in trade with the natives and forestalled French enter- 
prise by concluding treaties with the Sultans of Sokoto 
and Bornu, in reality held its position in the anterior 
on mere sufferance. European merchandise was wel- 
comed, but British ideas on the subject of slave- 
raiding were abhorrent to Mohamedan potentates. 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 103 

To hope that such princehngs would perceive the error 
of their ways and proceed to reform their methods at 
the bidding of a missionary was an idea whicli might 
do duty on an Exeter Hall platform, though nowhere 
else. The ripe experience of the Governor of Nigeria 
taught him that progress was impossible till the Fulani 
had been conquered in at least one battle. 

With the means at command it was a daring 
venture, and when the intention leaked out at home 
the value of secrecy in England as well as in Nigeria 
was amply illustrated. Experts (so-called) prophesied 
the speedy annihilation of the expedition, Little 
Englanders shouted for its recall, and the press teemed 
with the kind of advice which produced the abandon- 
ment of Gordon in the Sudan and the policy of scuttle 
whenever any enterprise seemed to involve a risk. 
Such counsel would have been but too congenial to 
the Colonial Secretaries of a few years previously, but 
fell unheeded on the ears of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, 
who fully grasped the duty of accepting some risk in 
order to further a British interest, and took upon his 
shoulders the responsibility of backing Sir George's 
enterprise. Goldie's critics were so far in the right 
that absolute disaster awaited him if he miscalculated 
the fighting capability of his enemy or the rehability 
of his own troops. His forces consisted of Hausas 
trained and led by British officers. They had been 
carefully drilled and disciplined for several years, 
and had distinguished themselves in small encounters 
with slave-raiders, but had not before met their co- 
rehgionists in pitched battle. They were now to be 
pitted against overwhelming numbers of the very 
Fulani who had conquered and ruled Hausaland 
without question for a century. They were therefore, 
to say the least, untried soldiers, though, their British 



104 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

officers were staking their lives as a guarantee of their 
competency. 

Meanwhile the Emir of Nupe, equally confident in 
the superiority of his numerous cavalry, had sent 
6000 men under his chief general, the Markum Mohamed, 
to Kabba with the object of striking a blow direct 
at Lokoja.* His main army he kept at Bida for the 
defence of the capital and thus divided his force into 
two parts, separated by the broad Niger and a hundred 
miles of difficult country. The Governor, informed 
of this move, decided to interpose his tiny force 
between the two Nupe armies, defeat the smaller 
first, and then by rapid marching throw himself against 
the main body at Bida. The idea was simple, bold and 
stragetically sound, but the utmost secrecy and 
despatch were required to carry it out and prevent a 
junction of the two armies before they could be dealt 
with separately. Goldie also took care to patrol the 
Niger with gunboats and launches, to prevent all com- 
munication across the river and to frustrate the 
intended alliance of Nupe and Ilorin. In this, as in 
other campaigns, the decision having been made and 
the means provided, mobility became an essential 
factor in the problem. 

The force at his disposal consisted of thirty British 
officers and non-commissioned officers, and 513 Hausas 
and Yorubas, commanded by Major Arnold, a young 
cavalry officer who had devoted his energies to the 
training and organising of the troops. The flotilla was 
entrusted to Mr. Wallace, the Agent-General of the 
Company, a civilian with twenty years' experience of 
the country, while Sir George Goldie accompanied the 
troops and directed the plan of campaign. The expe- 
dition started by land and water on January 6, 1897. 

* See map facing page 120. 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 105 

The land force was organised in seven companies, 
each a complete unit, with a maxim attached to it. 
Seymour Vandeleur commanded the maxim of No. 5 
Company, manned as were the rest by Hausas. The 
artillery consisted of two Whitworth B.L. guns (a 
twelve- and a nine-pounder) and five seven-pounder 
light guns, carried by native porters and served in 
action by three Royal Artillery officers and 59 Hausa 
gunners. This force, in addition to its offensive 
operations, had to safeguard the march of 900 carriers, 
loaded with three weeks' supply of food and ammuni- 
tion. Owing to the bush and scrub, the first few 
marches had to be conducted in single file, thus reduc- 
ing the speed of the column to that of its slowest 
porter. Two companies formed the advance guard 
and went on daily to prepare the next night's camping 
ground ; the remainder undertook the duty of escort 
to the procession of carriers which from its length and 
slowness was vulnerable to attack by cavalry, though 
luckily nothing of the kind was attempted. Each even- 
ing strands of wire were stretched round the bivouac 
at forty yards distance to guard against night attacks, 
and " surprise " lights were hung up at intervals. 
These, on being fired, burned clearly for sufficient time 
to enable the maxims to be turned on the threatened 
point. The men slept with their rifles close beside 
them. 

The British officers were mounted on wiry little 
ponies from the interior, and were each allowed a 
native servant, but their baggage was of the lightest 
description. Two mallams (priests) accompanied the 
troops ; prayers were repeated thrice daily ; Mohame- 
dan observances were strictly respected — thus no 
Fulani could truthfully assert that the white man 
was perverting the pious Hausa. 



io6 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

It was hot even for tropical Africa as the column 
marched in a northerly direction to place itself astride 
the road between Kabba and Bida, a position which 
was reached without opposition on January ii, at a 
village called Sura, where a zariba was built to accom- 
modate the bulk of the porters under the protection 
of one company, commanded by Pereira. The remain- 
der of the force started in the lightest possible order 
to surprise the Markum's camp at Kabba. Three days 
of forced marches through beautiful country brought 
them to the outer walls of the town, but only to learn 
that the Nupe army had just broken up its camp and 
marched north-west to rejoin the main body at Bida. 
It was a bitter disappointment to the troops, who were 
spoiling for a fight, but Sir George relied on Mr. 
Wallace's system of steamer patrols to prevent the 
Markum's army from crossing the Niger ; moreover 
the time could not be considered as altogether wasted. 
During the marches the men had learned to trust their 
officers, and confidence, mobility and discipline had 
improved daily. 

The inhabitants of Kabba rejoiced at their deliver- 
ance from oppression and none was more demonstra- 
tive than the old chief, who had been in receipt of a 
subsidy from the Fulani for collecting slaves among 
his own people. With true native caution, however, 
he refused all tangible assistance to the British, and 
would not even sell them horses, of which they stood 
greatly in need. As in his experience no institution 
had hitherto been permanent, why should he now 
believe that the Fulani would not return in a week 
or two ? A picturesque review of the troops was held 
under the walls of the town, Fulah power was declared 
at an end, and the country formally taken over ; the 
enemy's deserted camp was burned, and by the i6th 



ON THl' MARCH IN NIGERIA 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 107 

the flying column rejoined its supplies, and was enjoy- 
ing a day of rest, for the long hot marches were begin- 
ning to tell on both officers and men. 

The scenery had hitherto offered every variety 
of scrub, grassy plain, thick forest and rocky hills ; 
the country was fertile, dotted with villages and 
patches of cultivation, chiefly of dhurra (maize), yams, 
plantain and cotton. A good deal of primitive industry 
was carried on, especially the weaving of cotton into 
cloth on ingenious native looms. Here and there, 
however, sad spectacles of ruin and desolation marked 
the track of a party of Nupe slave-raiders, of whom 
the inhabitants showed the greatest terror, though they 
welcomed the British with confidence. On turning 
northward a long and trying march led the column 
over the Jakpana Hills, which here form the watershed 
between the Middle Niger and Lagos. Owing to absence 
of water these hills had to be crossed without a halt, 
and the lava rocks burning under a tropical sun caused 
suffering to the bare-footed porters. 

At last, however, the river again came into view 
and, passing through villages surrounded by exten- 
sive cultivation, the force rejoined the flotilla at 
Egbon and learned that the gunboats had pre- 
vented any contingent of the enemy from crossing the 
stream. 

Thus, in spite of a minor disappointment at Kabba, 
the original plan held good, and preparations were 
made for the advance on Bida, distant twenty-five 
miles from the river. After the crossing, an unford- 
able creek running parallel to the Niger was no in- 
superable obstacle, as with the aid of some canoes 
and a steel boat the troops were safely ferried across, 
but a swamp just beyond proved a more serious diffi- 
culty and indeed nearly wrecked the success of the 



io8 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

expedition. The two heavy guns now became the prob- 
lem of the day. To leave them behind might involve 
failure to breach the walls of Bida, to drag them by 
manual labour through a swamp in face of an enemy 
involved delay and necessitated an undesirable sub- 
division of the small force. Meanwhile, information 
derived from captured natives pointed to desperate 
fighting by the Nupes in defence of their capital. It 
was decided after consideration to run a risk and tem- 
porarily divide the force, so Cunningham was sent 
on with two companies, including Vandeleur's, whilst 
the remainder escorted the guns and porters. 

Pushing rapidly forward the advance guard, ac- 
companied by Sir George Goldie, made a long march 
into a country which changed its character, cultivation 
giving place to open undulating downs with gentle 
folds and here and there a village or farmstead nestling 
amongst some trees. It seemed admirably adapted to 
the enemy's cavalry tactics. After crossing a wide 
ravine and ascending a slope, the advance-guard 
suddenly beheld the Nupe army drawn up in its 
thousands on a wide front, flanked by large bodies 
of white-robed horsemen. Major Arnold now came up 
with a reinforcement of two companies and decided to 
continue the advance in order to distract the enemy's 
attention from our line of carriers and slow-moving 
guns in rear. The little body of Hausas in their khaki 
uniforms and red tarbooshes carried out the movement 
with deliberation and coolness under a galling fire 
from the enemy's advanced marksmen, who disputed 
every yard of the ground. But their volleys and maxim 
fire told with effect on the Nupes, who gave ground as 
the force moved steadily forward to the summit of 
an undulating ridge where a halt was called. Here 
a full view of Bida city two thousand yards off burst 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 109 

upon them and they knew that a decisive hour in the 
destiny of Nigeria was at hand. 

The scene was worthy of the occasion and deeply 
impressed Vandeleur and the few British officers who 
were present. The town, containing from 70,000 to 
100,000 inhabitants, stretched as far as the eye could 
reach, a mass of lofty thatched roofs and clay walls 
encircled by a massive crenalated outer wall on which 
stood a throng of citizens, the spectators of a struggle 
which should decide whether British or Fulani were to 
be their future masters. In front, brilliantly robed 
Emirs trotted at the head of their retainers, horse and 
foot, and the air resounded with the roar and din of 
an army drawn up for battle. 

Clearly the little knot of 250 Hausas on the ridge, 
who, be it remembered, constituted half the entire 
force, could not venture on an attack, nor could they 
remain where they were without water. Meanwhile, 
in spite of occasional outbursts from our Maxims, 
the enemy interpreted the halt as a confession of weak- 
ness, an invitation to attack. They therefore started 
a forward move in extended line with enveloping 
flanks. But the British officers, keenly on the watch, 
formed the well-drilled companies, by word of command, 
into square at the double, and then slowl}^ retired in 
steady ranks to avoid being cut off from the ravine. 

Instantly the whole Nupe army raised a mighty 
shout of enthusiasm and bore down upon the square, 
surrounding it on all sides. The moment was critical ; 
the smallest mistake, the slightest panic would have 
brought eager Fulani horsemen charging into our 
ranks in their thousands, and the day would have 
ended in a massacre by superior numbers. But the 
officers kept cool, their men shot steadily at every halt, 
the square showed no signs of wavering. The Nupe 



no SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

footmen aimed so high that their bullets for the most 
part whizzed harmlessly overhead, but the active horse- 
men on the point of charging home came so dangerously 
near that frequent halts were necessary to open maxim 
and seven-pounder fire, in order to clear the path for 
further retreat . Slowly, gradually and surely the square 
fought its way back towards the ravine, brushing aside 
the more adventurous horsemen, keeping others on 
the flanks at a respectful distance and facing at each 
halt the threatened rush of the footmen. Of all 
tactical operations none is more trying than a retire- 
ment in the face of a fanatical enemy, none a severer 
test of nerve and discipline ; and it was with intense 
relief that at last Arnold and his officers approached 
their bivouac at the ravine and found its supplies 
and reserve ammunition intact. Here they could halt 
near water and defy attack. 

It was now 2.30 p.m. ; the advance-guard had been 
marching and fighting since dawn ; the men were 
hungry and tired, but were still threatened by a host 
of twenty to thirty thousand of the enemy, and rest 
was not possible. The seven-pounders had fortunately 
arrived at the front and were busily employed in pre- 
venting the cavalry from working round the flanks 
to the immediate rear, a task which they successfully 
accomplished, though their accuracy was moderate 
and their range limited. However, their moral 
effect was far greater than their execution, and 
Arnold felt strong enough to detach two of his com- 
panies to the rear, in order to reinforce the escort 
of the heavy guns, on which the success of the ex- 
pedition depended. They were not yet in sight and 
nothing had been heard of them, but soon after 4 p.m. 
the nine-pounder was dragged into camp, and matters 
assumed a brighter aspect. 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA iii 

The first shell, aimed with precision at long range, 
landed among a clump of horsemen in a village and 
scattered them in all directions, amidst loud cheers 
from the camp. After a few more shells of a similar 
kind tlie enemy with one accord drew off to Bida, 
carrying their dead and wounded with them. It was 
an unexpected but welcome rehef, which the British 
officers only understood next day when they learnt 
that one of the first shells burst amongst the Agaie 
division, alHes of the Emir of Bida, killing their chief 
and so disheartening the contingent that it departed 
homewards the same night. 

It was dusk when the advance-guard sat down 
to a meal after twelve hours' fighting, and quite dark 
before the remainder of the force escorting the twelve- 
pounder reached camp, amid cheering and bugle- 
playing. This gun, by means of a compass-bearing, 
was aimed in the dark at the city of Bida, elevated 
to its extreme range (5400 yards) and fired— more as 
a relief to the feelings of the oihcers and a defiance 
to the enemy than for any practical purpose. As 
luck would have it, this single shell fell in the town 
and burst near the palace, causing considerable com- 
motion and alarm. Thus did the heavy artillery 
compensate for the risk involved in the subdivision 
of the force during twelve hours of critical work. 

When morning broke, after a night spent in firing 
rockets to keep the enemy at a distance, the force, 
including loaded carriers and heavy guns, crossed 
the ravine and formed into square on the slope beyond 
—porters in the centre, heavy guns in the front face, 
maxims at the corners. Slowly this unwieldy square 
crept forward, tightly packed, a solid mass of men 
occupying a tiny space of ground. The Fulani cavalry 
swept round to threaten the rear, but this time the 



112 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

British were a compact force with no rearguard, and 
had the added prestige of advancing to the attack. 
The fighting was in fact a repetition of that of the 
previous day, and would be tedious to describe in 
detail. Riflemen in bushes and horsemen in the open 
delayed the square, but it reached the ridge with a few 
casualties, including Sir George's servant shot dead 
at his side, and beheld the Nupe army drawn up on 
the opposite slope. The guns came into action and 
soon cleared the ground, masses of the enemy retiring 
into the town by its several gates in order to line the 
wall, others sheering off to some high ground to the 
west. So the force moved on to within half a mile 
of the city, took up a defensive position on a rising 
piece of ground near some water, and commenced the 
bombardment. About this time the Emir of Bida 
was wounded in the arm as he stood near the western 
gate in a crowd of horsemen, and the moral effect of 
our shells spread dismay amongst the enemy ; moreover, 
the thatched roofs of Bida, scorched dry by a tropical 
sun, were soon blazing in all directions. Thus the 
fighting men on the outer wall who had opened a well- 
sustained fire were now hotly engaged with our volleys, 
maxims and guns, and were also threatened by a con- 
flagration in rear. They wavered, and finally aban- 
doned the defence of the city. By midday the whole 
Nupe army was in full retreat through the town, 
dispersing into the country beyond, and the place stood 
at the mercy of the conquerors. 

Camp was pitched outside, a meal cooked, and later 
in the day the officers marched their troops through the 
city, when they realised for the first time its immense 
extent (three miles by two and a half) and were fully 
impressed with the danger which street fighting would 
have entailed, accompanied as it always is by loss of 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 113 

discipline and temptations to loot, which no African 
troops can resist. The moral effect of the heavy guns 
had obviated a costly assault on the outer wall and 
hand-to-hand scuffles in the streets. 

After one day's halt to rest the troops and en- 
courage the inhabitants to resume their usual occupa- 
tions, the force took up quarters in the palace in the 
heart of the city, and proclamations were issued 
declaring Fulani rule and slavery at an end. The 
British flag was hoisted over the place, reconnais- 
sances were undertaken into the surrounding country, 
and soon the trading population learned that they 
would be more secure under our rule even though the 
old currency, slaves, was abolished. Some members 
of the reigning family came in to surrender, and finally 
the Markum was appointed Emir with power to rule 
the State under British supervision. Thus the whole 
of Nupe was freed from oppression, confidence was 
restored, commerce encouraged and the last report 
of the country's progress shows how beneficial the 
expulsion of the old rulers has proved. Having estab- 
lished a native government to replace the old one 
the expedition returned to the Niger. 

Writers on military operations are sometimes 
obhged — by way of illustration — to institute com- 
parisons between one campaign and another, and 
to draw deductions therefrom. In this connection 
the Bida expedition has been likened " to the historic 
battle of Plassey, whereon the foundation of the 
Indian Empire was laid " ; but I do not propose 
to enter upon this subject beyond suggesting that the 
inferences to be drawn are obvious. Brains and 
forethought, unhampered by circumlocution, planned 
and carried out the whole thing. The criticism that 
the enemy possessed no field-guns, that he ought to 

H 



114 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

have rushed the ravine camp early during the first 
day's fight, that he could have successfully attacked 
the column on its hundred miles' march from Kabba 
to Bida is true enough. But in judging of the event 
one must give weight to many considerations, including 
the past history of the country, the numbers engaged 
on both sides, the difficulties of transport and the 
results achieved. The object of war is neither to kill 
as many enemies as possible nor to telegraph home a 
big butcher's bill in one's own force, as is sometimes 
supposed. At Bida our losses were Lieutenant Thom- 
son and seven men killed, nine men wounded, and one 
seven-pounder captured by the enemy. In addition 
Captains Hatton and Anderson and Lieutenants Thorpe, 
Parker and Musters (he died on the homeward journey) 
were invalided to England. Thus the achievement 
was out of proportion to the loss, though the enemy 
suffered heavily during the first day's fight. From 
start to finish the expedition occupied one month. 

A commander of native troops may be judged from 
the point of view of a strategist, a tactician or a humani- 
tarian ; but in any case he must be successful. Now 
the campaign under review was a small masterpiece 
of strategy; it included a tactical success gained 
by five hundred men against twenty thousand ; it 
advanced the cause of humanity by freeing a wide area 
from slave-raids ; and it ultimately added Hausaland 
to the British Empire. Surely no Englishman, save 
those who habitually cry down the British Empire, 
will complain of such a result ! 

But before we quit Nigeria to follow Vandeleur's 
career into other parts, some mention must be made 
of another expedition in which he was engaged against 
an important Fulah State named Ilorin, situated 
sixty miles to the south of the Niger at Jebba (one 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 115 

hundred miles up stream from Bida). It will have been 
gathered from what has been said that the Company, 
with its headquarters at the confluence of two rivers, 
had, until 1897, been essentially a trading company, 
with command of the navigable waters but no real 
authority inland. Based on its steamers and gunboats, 
the time had come for its land force to carry forward 
the enterprise, and put the company into touch with 
the commercial cities of the interior. But it was 
impossible to bring this about so long as the Fulani 
impeded all intercourse and clung obstinately to the 
practice of levying a tribute of slaves. With such 
magnificent highways of trade as the Niger and Benue 
flowing through regions inhabited by such intelligent 
traders as the Hausas, it will always be a remarkable 
fact that the desirability of sea-power was never grasped 
by the native mind, and that the navigable rivers 
were looked upon as obstacles to, rather than pro- 
moters of, commerce. In a land where the art of 
weaving and dyeing rivalled Manchester's best efforts, 
the art of boat-building had not progressed beyond 
the dug-out canoe of the ancient Briton. 

The British introduced a new conception by depend- 
ing on river-power. Now, with increasing prosperity 
and the fear of German and French encroachment — 
a French force actually occupied Busa (250 miles within 
the British frontier as laid down by treaty) during the 
Bida campaign — the time had come to take action 
on land. Bida in January, was the first step, Ilorin 
a month later was the second ; together they con- 
solidated the whole region south of the Middle Niger, 
and on the north opened a road to Hausaland and the 
Fulani Empire — the road which in 1903 enabled Sir 
Frederick Lugard to complete the conquest of Nigeria. 

We will therefore close this chapter with an account 



ii6 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

of the Ilorin expedition, derived from Vandeleur's 
copious materials. During previous years the Governor 
had made several ineffectual attempts to arrive at a 
friendly understanding with this Fulah Emir, and 
on one occasion offered to ride to the capital and 
personally settle the frontiers beyond which slave- 
raids into Lagos would no longer be permitted. But 
the weak Emir, though half inchned to agree to the 
proposal, was overruled by his own military chiefs, 
called Beloguns, who could not conceive the possibility 
of defeat by the British and were unwilling to forego 
their privilege of making expeditions, involving no 
risk to themselves, against neighbouring pagans. 
In the hope, however, that the sharp lesson just read 
to the more powerful State of Nupe might modify 
the overweening confidence of the Beloguns and their 
thousand horse and five thousand foot, Sir George 
sent messengers to explain the altered situation and 
press for a peaceful settlement of the frontier. But 
the military caste in Ilorin, not unlike similar bodies 
in other parts of the world, held foreign peoples in 
supreme contempt and had to suffer the consequent 
humiliation. 

Meanwhile our expedition, consisting of fifteen 
officers, 340 men, two seven-pounders, and four maxims, 
proceeded in steamers up the Niger, and was continu- 
ously cheered by the riverside villagers, who kept 
running along the banks in a state of wild excitement, 
dancing and singing to testify their joy at the defeat 
of the Fulani. 

At Jebba, the Hmit of uninterrupted navigation, 
the force landed and marched inland towards Ilorin — 
at first through a waterless, sandy tract, which re- 
minded Vandeleur of the Hand of Somaliland, and 
afterwards through a beautiful park-like district where 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 117 

rolling plains dotted with timber kept an agricultural 
population in ease and comfort. From the villages, 
partially hidden beneath luxurious banana groves, 
the peasants looked out upon the column with 
curiosity. As the city was gradually approached 
the rivers and streams became numerous, the villages 
larger and more frequent, and the whole scene presented 
an appearance of rich fertility ; but here the inhabitants, 
influenced by their Fulani masters, began to display 
unmistakable symptoms of hostility. They could be 
seen peering from behind trees and houses, refusing 
to acknowledge the friendly shouts of our guides, and, 
by their general behaviour, warning our experienced 
officers to be ready for a fight. No shot was fired by 
either side, though numbers of white-robed cavalry 
dogged the march of the column, but three miles from 
Ilorin city the aspect of affairs became so threatening 
that Arnold halted the advance-guard, and ordered 
square to be formed as successive detachments came 
up. 

This precaution was but just in time, for a body of 
300 to 400 horsemen, following on the heels of our rear- 
guard, charged home just as the last detachment 
formed up into the square. On they came, and Vande- 
leur could not but admire their daring courage as, 
headed by a Belogun, they made straight for the 
serried line of bayonets, brandishing their spears over 
their heads. But here, as at Bida, our Hausas behaved 
with the coolness born of discipline and success, and 
justified the confidence of their officers in what proved 
an exciting moment. Without flinching they received 
the charge of horse with a steady volley, which emptied 
many a saddle and caused the enemy to swerve round 
both flanks of the square. The flanks at once opened 
fire, completed the rout, and proved, if proof be 



ii8 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

needed, that the most gallant and expert horsemen 
cannot hope to contend with disciplined riflemen. 
Yet this failure of the horse in no way disconcerted the 
tactics of the Belogun who had been told off to attack 
with the men on foot, and the action became general 
all round the square. 

Passing over details our musketry cleared away 
the more adventuresome natives and enabled the force 
to advance towards the river whose passage the 
florins were concentrating to dispute. Here fighting 
of a desultory kind continued till evening, but the 
enemy did not again venture upon an attack, and at 
nightfall fell back to a position in rear. Accordingly 
camp was formed by the river, as it was too late to 
enter the city and, moreover, it was hoped that by 
giving time for the news of the day's fighting to spread, 
further bloodshed might be avoided on the morrow. 
The little force lay down to rest on the battlefield, 
under a brilliant moon on a cold night, illumined 
by fiery rockets discharged from the square and a huge 
circle of grass fires lighted by the natives. Every 
precaution against a night surprise was taken, as the 
enemy was still busy and had dragged out an old cannon 
which threw a projectile that moved like a frightened 
rabbit over sandy ground. Men also came down to 
shout imprecations and threats at the picquet, and 
about midnight a false alarm caused the troops to 
stand to arms, except one officer who slept soundly 
through the noise. 

Next morning, under cover of a mist, our men 
resumed their advance towards the town, and, when the 
sun rose, opened with seven-pounders on the enemy's 
last position outside its walls. Their demorahsation 
was then seen to be complete, for they began to bolt 
in driblets, and a Httle later the white flag was dis- 



THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 119 

played over a gateway as a signal of submission. A 
halt was called, firing ceased on both sides and later 
in the day our victorious troops paraded in Ilorin 
and established themselves on the market square. 

The city was found to be larger than Bida though 
of similar character, and our first duty was to restore 
order and stop looting by runaway slaves. The Emir 
and four Beloguns had fled to a neighbouring village 
with a few adherents in a sorry plight ; hearing of their 
condition, Sir George sent to try and induce them to 
come in and surrender unconditionally. His embassy 
was successful, and the Emir and Beloguns, mounted 
on their horses covered with picturesque saddle cloths, 
and followed by their personal attendants, were 
ushered ceremoniousl}'' into the square where the 
troops were drawn up beneath the British flag. Here 
they threw themselves on their knees before the 
Governor in an attitude of utter submission — being 
evidently apprehensive of what might be their fate. 
Still the fact of their coming in when they might easily 
have escaped showed a degree of confidence in British 
methods which they would not have displayed to their 
own co-religionists, and was satisfactory evidence 
of our prestige. The treaty to be signed was at once 
read out and carefully explained. It recognised Ilorin 
as being henceforth subject to Great Britain instead 
of to Sokoto ; it enacted that gin and rum were to be 
immediately destroyed wherever found ; it stipulated 
that war was never to be undertaken without the 
previous consent of the Governor ; and it reinstated 
the Emir as the British representative. The whole 
party was obviously reheved when these clauses were 
understood, and willingly affixed their signatures in 
Arabic. After the ceremony the Governor had a 
private interview with the Emir who retired with 



120 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

dignity and pleasure at so easily escaping from an 
unpleasant situation. 

It thus came about that a State was lifted from the 
slough of mediaeval oppression and enrolled with the 
other thriving provinces of our Empire. 

The return trip down the Niger was enlivened by 
some shooting in a burnt-up and rather gameless 
country. An expedition planned against the Potani, 
a tribe on the banks of the river, proved unnecessary 
owing to the submission of their ruler, so Vandeleur 
and the other special service officers embarked for 
England in March. Their way lay through Lisbon 
and Madrid, where they visited the picture galleries 
and saw " a sickening bull-fight." Recognition for 
his services awaited Seymour at home. He was highly 
commended in official despatches, and although only 
twenty-seven and still a subaltern, was noted for 
future promotion to the rank of Brevet-Major directly 
he became a captain. 

The scene of his activities now shifted to different 
surroundings. He was appointed aide-de-camp to 
Major-General Lord Methuen commanding the Home 
District. Inspections and reviews were the order of the 
day coupled with the military arrangements for the 
Diamond Jubilee Procession. That memorable event 
was no holiday for those concerned with its success, 
and with his personal acquaintance of Empire-making 
the assembly of the Queen's subjects from all parts 
had more meaning for Vandeleur than for most. Nay, 
he furnished a practical illustration of the brotherhood 
of Empire, for at an inspection of Colonial troops 
he recognised several Hausas with whom he had served 
in Nigeria and among them a man of liis own gun 
detachment. 

A pleasant autumn was spent in Norway where his 



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THE ACQUISITION OF BRITISH NIGERIA 121 

father hired a river abounding in sea-trout. Reindeer- 
stalking was also to be had, so Seymour got together 
a camp kit and started on a three days' expedition. 
After eleven hours of such walking and mountaineering 
as he had never known before he brought down two 
buck, one with a very fine head. 

As regards the military future Vandeleur was fully 
determined to secure the first vacancy in the Egyptian 
Army, in fact Major-General Hunter had promised 
his help in the matter. For this reason he refused 
what might otherwise have been an attractive offer 
of the post of Deputy-Assistant Commissioner in the 
Central African Protectorate. Meanwhile he devoted 
himself to bringing out a book on his experiences in 
Uganda and Nigeria, and he was hard at work on it 
when, on Christmas Eve, 1897, a telegram arrived 
offering him service in the Egyptian Army if he could 
start at once. Twenty-four hours later he left Charing 
Cross for Cairo, and by dint of incessant writing on 
board the mail boat he was able to send back the 
finished manuscript of his volume from Port Said. 
It was pubhshed under the title " Campaigning on 
the Upper Nile and Niger," and was very favourably 
received. 

There is no doubt that he intended, had he lived, 
to publish his further mihtary experiences, and those 
who now have the task to perform can fully realise 
how far more interesting they would have been from 
his own pen. 



CHAPTER VI 

ENGLAND ON THE NILE 

[See general map of Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan] 

Considerations of space and the limited scope of this 
volume unfortunately forbid an excursion into the 
fascinating study of ancient Egypt and the curious 
history of the dwellers by the banks of the Middle Nile. 
Their story has not yet been written in popular form 
and those who seek acquaintance with it must mean- 
while grope for the facts in works which are difficult 
to understand without personal experience of the Nile 
valley. Other lands alter, but the Sudan remains a 
region of ingrained conservatism, pervaded by a dis- 
tinct flavour of the Old Testament, where Enghsh 
officials who have acquired some fluency in Arabic 
come daily in contact with customs, modes of thought 
and turns of expression which remind them of the Bible 
history they learnt in their childhood. Even the 
journey of Herodotus, Father of historians, who 
travelled with an army up the Nile (457 B.C.) might 
have been written in our own time, so little have the 
circumstances or the people altered. 

But apart from the history of the Sudan in the 
remote past and the later tales of Sir Samuel Baker 
and other explorers of the Nile sources, it is advisable 
that we refresh our memories regarding some of the 
more recent occurrences connected with the country ; 
otherwise it will be difficult to realise the cause of Lord 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 123 

Kitchener's campaigns or to follow with intelligence the 
reason for his operations. Indeed, these occurrences 
and causes were familiar to Vandeleur, and were so 
frequently discussed by him during the war, that, if I 
were to omit them and merely record the doings of this 
officer on active service I should not present a faithful 
picture of his life. His work contributed to the success 
of the wider issues involved, and, had he lived to record 
his personal experiences, his book would have com- 
manded a special interest by reason of the author's 
grasp of the situation as a whole. Thus, if I am able 
in this narrative, to clearly outline the main events I 
shall be accomphshing that which Vandeleur himself 
would have done with pleasure. 

The Egyptian Sudan with which we are concerned is 
that portion of the continent which extends southwards 
from the Assouan Cataract to Fashoda* on the Upper 
Nile ; it embraces the northern deserts between the 
Red Sea littoral and Darfur, and the luxuriant vegeta- 
tion of the southern districts lying betwixt the moun- 
tains of Abyssinia and the swamps of the Bahr-el-Gazal 
— a huge extent of country, fertile beyond conception 
for hundreds of miles along the borders of mighty rivers, 
barren and remorseless over vast areas of desert and 
scrub. To imagine that its inhabitants are mere 
savages, fit victims for maxim guns or missionary 
enterprise, as may happen to suit the taste of the English 
pubhc, would be an error ; yet this false impression was 
prevalent during the operations of our army in the field. 
Men had no leisure to devote to the history or condition 
of the inhabitants, and thus imbibed during the cam- 
paign certain prejudices which it is desirable to dispel 
regarding a people far removed from savagery ; indeed, 
both Arabs and Blacks are members of an old-estab- 

* Fiishoda has been renamed Kodok. 



124 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

lished social order which deserves to be studied and 
improved, but not abohshed. 

Here, as in Nigeria and other States of northern 
Africa, the Mohamedan rehgion has been for centuries 
the dominating influence ; but in the Egyptian Sudan, 
perhaps owing to its proximity to Mecca, the rehgious 
note has been more accentuated, the fanaticism more 
merciless and the sword has claimed a greater number of 
victims. Consequently, in spite of nearer access both by 
sea and land, the country has developed neither native 
industry nor manufacture. It has produced no trade 
emporium such as Kano in the west and has never 
utihsed its natural resources like Hausaland. Its chief 
product has been a prodigious crop of Mohamedan 
teachers and sects, which have in turn worked upon the 
susceptibilities of emotional and warlike races, fanning 
their behef in the supernatural, until it may fairly be said 
that no fable can be too grotesque to obtain credence 
on the banks of the Nile. Men of such temperament 
have elsewhere been welded into nations under strong 
and capable rulers and have then borne an honourable 
record in history. But until to-day the Sudan has been 
consistently misgoverned whether by local sheiks or 
foreign invaders ; each man's hand has been lifted 
against his neighbour, tribe warring against tribe, yet 
knowing no better than to endure extortion from the 
strong and injustice from those in authority. Between 
the exactions of the Khedive's subordinates and the 
raids of free-booting slave-dealers, a man's life and 
property were of small account. Yet this gloomy 
picture had its bright side and was frequently reUeved 
by deeds of heroism, by magnificent loyalty to local 
chiefs, by devotion to tribal and family ties and by 
enthusiastic self-sacrifice. Indeed, to those who will 
study below the surface of a sea of bloodshed, the key- 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE ^ 125 

note of the people's character will be found in an 
emotional romanticism of the type of our Middle Ages — 
a period of chivalrous deeds stained by barbarous crimes. 
The Middle Ages of the Sudan lasted through the nine- 
teenth century, during which the tribes were subjected 
to much provocation. They bore with apathy from 
1821 to 1881 the burden of conquest by Egyptian 
pashas and occupation by Egyptian garrisons, in addi- 
tion to the customary exactions of their own sheiks. 
In at last freeing themselves from this foreign yoke, 
they enjoyed for four brief years a delirious period of 
intoxicating licence under the Mahdi, slaying 40,000 
helpless Egyptian soldiers and one great EngHshman — 
Charles Gordon : they successfully resisted invasion by 
three British mihtary expeditions, which strewed the 
desert sands with fallen tribesmen but effected no 
useful purpose whatsoever. 

Then followed a period best described as " stewing 
in their own juice " — juice brewed by the strong for 
consumption by the weak — a period which commenced 
with the death of the Mahdi in 1885, and ended at the 
battle of Omdurman in 1898. During those fourteen 
dreary years the Sudan was crushed beneath the heel of 
Baggara tyranny under the one-man rule of the Khalifa 
AbduUahi, who reduced the population by murder, 
famine and perpetual fighting from 8,525,000 to 
1,870,500.* Whole tribes were wiped out to secure the 
supremacy of the Baggara ; wide fertile lands reverted 
to desert because man would not sow what he might not 
reap : and thus did the survivors suffer for their brief, 
Ucentious riot under the victorious Mahdi. The last 
act of the bloody drama will be described when we deal 
with Lord Kitchener's campaigns which brought peace 
to the country ; but meanwhile can any one doubt that 

♦ Lord Cromer's official report, 1904. 



126 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

the Sudan requires complete rest for two or more genera- 
tions, under the protection of the first Uberal rulers it 
has ever known ? With twenty years' experience to 
guide our judgment we at last perceive that the problem 
of Egypt and the problem of the Sudan were after all 
but one — namely the problem of the Nile — and that 
England's constant endeavour to sub-divide the whole 
and curtail her responsibihty has been a failure. She 
may have been wise, from her own point of view, to 
take only one step at a time, but the great river, flowing 
placidly over three thousand miles of land, heeds not the 
makeshifts of timorous man. The Nile has proved more 
potent than the statecraft of nations, has united peoples 
whom rulers have attempted to separate and has 
quietly rejected the theory that several masters can 
peacefully control its waters. This axiom is writ large 
across the pages of its ancient and modern history and 
has been illustrated by events in our own time ; is it 
then too much to ask of British statesmen that they 
shall acknowledge its truth and firmly maintain the 
guardianship which England so unwilhngly undertook, 
but so successfully carried out on the banks of the 
historic river ? 

The story of England in Egypt has developed into 
England on the Nile and may now be briefly told. 

In 1 88 1 the Mahdi arose to reform the laws and 
eliminate the incompetent pashas who ruled at Khar- 
toum : in the following year the Egyptian army 
revolted under Arabi and destroyed the Khedive's 
authority in Egypt itself. Though almost simulta- 
neous, the two insurrections had nothing in common 
beyond the frenzied desire of all men for emancipation 
from the same rotten government, yet, but for England, 
the fighting hosts of the Mahdi would undoubtedly have 
swept down the Nile and destroyed Arabi and his undis- 



to 



^.\VAr^K-.\V'^Jh^':L ON IHK NILh 




~^^f*^f X4.4r2^^^^ 




ENGLAND ON THE NILE 127 

ciplined soldiers. That this was the real intention of 
the Mahdi and his Khahfa can be proved over and over 
again by contemporary documents and by studying 
Wad el Negumi's gallant invasion of Egypt, which 
ended disastrously for him at the battle of Toski (1889). 
In fact Arabi's party contained no germ of sufficient 
strength or capacity to organise a native force fit to 
protect the native soil, and, if England — heeding the 
cry of Egypt for the Egyptians — had refrained from 
occupying Cairo in 1882, she would afterwards have 
heard the barbarous yell, Egypt for the Mahdi, enforced 
by Dervish swords throughout the Delta. Fortunately, 
however, England was firmly seated at Cairo in 1889 
and put an end to the Dervish invasion which Egypt 
under Arabi could certainly not have accomphshed. 

In connection with the disaffection which we have 
said was the cause of revolt throughout the land, it may 
be pointed out that, whereas in civilised states public 
opinion is beheved to control the government, in back- 
ward countries prosperity depends on strong individuals 
at the centre. In eastern parlance, the ruler is the 
father and mother of the people. Oppression by a 
capable man like the great Khedive Mehemet Ali will be 
patiently endured whilst the people are fairly prosperous 
and foreign exactions are prohibited. He had emanci- 
pated Egypt from the Turkish rule first estabhshed 
in the twelfth century, and had governed with intelli- 
gent efficiency and strength from 181 1 to 1848. In 
the twenties he had sent his son to conquer the Sudan 
which he exploited with success. But under feeble 
successors there arose a horde of foreigners and petty 
officials who preyed upon all departments of the State. 
The Khedive was no longer master in his own house, 
and the dry-rot at the core gradually extended through- 
out the body pohtic, until the richest country in the 



128 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

world for its size fell gradually into the depths of 
ruin, misery and rebellion. In fact the plight of the 
Egyptians was comparatively worse than that of the 
Sudanese tribes. For, when we consider the notorious 
patience of the fellaheen peasantry and realise that 
even such men were goaded into insurrection by petty 
oppression, we obtain some measure of the worthless- 
ness of the Cairo government and some explanation of 
the prosperity which was developed as soon as it was 
replaced by British officials. 

Meanwhile the government of the pashas, faced 
with a crisis throughout the land, clung to power in 
helpless bewilderment and had not the sense to realise 
the peril of a situation which they had themselves 
created. The promoters of the revolts both in the 
Sudan and Egypt were successful beyond their wildest 
dreams ; the usual excesses were, of course, committed 
during the period of excitement, and chaos reigned 
supreme from Fashoda to Alexandria. Every journalist 
in Europe thoughtlessly cried out that something must 
be done ! 

Yet so little were the circumstances understood at 
the time, that we find British statesmen gravely sug- 
gesting that the " unspeakable " Turk whom they 
wished to deport " bag and baggage " out of Europe in 
1877, should in 1882 undertake a civiHsing mission on 
behalf of the Great Powers in the Nile valley ! Their 
serious endeavour in this direction had also its humorous 
side, inasmuch as they went out of their way to inform 
Turkey that she must pay for her troops if any of them 
should be sent into Egypt ! The tempting offer was 
politely declined by the Sultan. 

Obviously, prompt action could alone save the 
situation, yet Lord Granville, Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, seemed to think that mere words would 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 129 

suffice. He accordingly engaged in prolonged negotia- 
tions first with France, then with Turkey, then again 
with France, and finally, with all the Great Powers, 
trying to induce some of them to restore order in Egypt. 
They all refused to do it themselves or to help us do it, 
and Lord Granville's futile despatches remain as a 
pitiable record of British statesmanship. Fortunately, 
Queen Victoria from the first displayed the wise political 
instinct for which she was famous and insisted that 
the only solution promising happy results would be 
" undivided English control." This pohcy was at last 
adopted. The campaign under Lord Wolseley was 
completely successful, and Cairo was occupied after 
an engagement at Tel-el-Kebir in 1882. The con- 
sequences were far-reaching, in spite of our Premier's 
reiterated pledges to evacuate the country, pledges 
which nobody asked for or expected, but which were 
nevertheless repeated by his successor. Truly plain 
men have reason for sometimes doubting whether the 
country's business is managed with ordinary fore- 
sight ! 

But if there remain a faithful few who still believe 
that the Cabinet of 1880 to 1885 was capable of direct- 
ing the business of an oversea Empire, they will surely 
find conversion in those chapters of Mr. John Morley's 
Life of Gladstone which deal with Egyptian and Sudanese 
affairs. Mr. Morley is not only a sympathetic bio- 
grapher but also Mr. Gladstone's warmest political 
admirer, yet even his literary skill is unable to mask 
the ineptitude of that Statesman's Egyptian policy or 
his inability to carry out such policy as he had. First 
he did not want to go to Egypt, then he sent 25,000 
men to occupy the country : having done this he longed 
to withdraw, but was afraid to do it ; having consented 
to stay temporarily in Egypt, he was quite determined 



130 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

not to be responsible for any part of the Sudan mess : 
no sooner was this announced than he despatched 
Charles Gordon and three extravagantly managed 
expeditions to Suakin and Dongola, costing over 
£10,000,000 of British money and ending in utter 
failure, not through the defeat of the soldiers but owing 
to the fact that, in spite of reiterated warnings that 
high Nile is the season for ascending the river, British 
Ministers could not make up their minds to start their 
expedition till the flood was already sinking. They 
were, therefore, too late to rescue their own envoy, 
Gordon, at Khartoum. 

Thus within the short space of two years (1882-4) 
they blundered in their attempts to avoid an expedition 
and blundered again whenever they feverishly deter- 
mined to send one. Their one success was the occupa- 
tion of Cairo, which restored prosperity to Egypt, yet 
this was the very thing they were thoroughly ashamed 
of and anxious to abandon. Looking back on the 
several episodes of this quite recent history one is 
tempted to ask whether our home administration was 
after all more competent to deal with the situation than 
the Egyptian pashas whom it superseded ? 

By the summer of 1885, having failed to reheve the 
garrisons, having failed to suppress Osman Digna at 
Suakin, and still muttering threats of scuttHng out of 
Egypt, British Ministers retired from the scene of their 
costly and humihating labours, and handed over the 
conduct of affairs to the man on the spot — Sir Evelyn 
Baring, now Lord Cromer. 

It was a lucky chance for the Empire that nobody 
then knew that Lord Cromer was a strong man, other- 
wise he would not have been selected for an independent 
post at Cairo. Courageous men are not usually trusted 
by vacillating ministers, as was proved by the treat- 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 131 

ment accorded to Sir Bartle Frere— dismissed from 
his post in South Africa by the Cabinet which appointed 
Baring to Egypt. But the probabiHty is that the 
Government, having lost popularity with the electorate, 
became heartily sick of its own mess on the Nile, and 
thankfully handed it over to some one else. Be this 
as it may, Lord Cromer's twenty years' patient states- 
manship at Cairo has compensated for the bunghng of 
some of his masters in London. 

Thwarted at every turn by the provoking restric- 
tions entailed by a British protectorate which was not 
a protectorate, but only a temporary occupation, he, 
nevertheless, managed to rescue the nation from bank- 
ruptcy by restoring its prosperity. He augmented the 
revenues by increasing the country's productiveness ; 
nursed a native army through infancy to manhood ; 
created huge reservoirs for storing and distributing the 
fertilising flood-water of the Nile to parched deserts ; 
economised on Egyptian budgets an annual sum' 
(£320,000) sufficient to start the Sudan on its new 
career of prosperity; and at last brought even the 
most inveterate enemies of the British occupation to 
acknowledge its value and cease carping at its con- 
tinuance. The story is no fairy tale, but can be read 
in England in Egypt by Sir Alfred Milner, and in the 
twenty-four sohd blue-books which deal with the sub- 
ject. It affords a striking example of what the best 
sort of Enghshmen can do, when beyond the sterihsing 
influence of party pohtics. 

From the above brief survey of the general situation 
let us turn to the work accomphshed by our officers. 

By the end of 1885 all troops were withdrawn from 
the Sudan and the country handed over to the tender 
mercies of the Khalifa. The reformed Egyptian army 
took over the defence of the frontiers at Wadi Haifa 



132 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

and Suakin, and commenced that prolonged training 
for war which enabled it subsequently to defeat the 
Dervishes in numerous unrecorded skirmishes and in 
the important actions which reconquered the Sudan. 
The old Egyptian army, the one which was defeated 
under Arabi, under Hicks and under Baker, was almost 
unequalled for cowardice and incapacity ; the new 
army under Grenfell and Kitchener, composed of the 
same human material, grew to be a model of efficiency 
in war. It attracted to its ranks every British sub- 
altern and captain who was eager to learn soldiering 
or ambitious to see active service, and the result of their 
efforts may be judged by the contrast afforded in the 
two following official documents : 

(i) Extract from General Valentine Baker's tele- 
gram describing the action near El Teb in February 
1884: " Marched yesterday morning with three thou- 
sand five hundred men towards Tokar. . . . On 
square being only threatened by small force of enemy, 
certainly less than a thousand strong, Egyptian troops 
threw down their arms and ran, allowing themselves 
to be killed without slightest resistance. More than 
two thousand killed. All material lost." 

(2) Extract from Special Army Order (War Office, 
September 1898) regarding Battle of Omdurman, 
signed by Field Marshall Viscount Wolseley, Com- 
mander-in-Chief: "The rank and file in the army of 
his Highness the Khedive showed a spirit which reflects 
the greatest credit on those oflicers and non-com- 
missioned officers who have so raised the standard of 
their discipline and military efficiency that they are 
now worthy to fight alongside European troops ; they 
exhibited not only steadiness in action, but remarkable 
endurance during two years of prolonged and most 
arduous labour. ..." 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 133 

The above extracts speak for themselves and would 
require no further words of explanation were it not that 
certain critics have suggested that, as the Sudanese 
battalions of the Egyptian army bore the brunt of 
the recent fighting, the fellaheen remain untested. 
Now, I am encouraged to record my own testimony on 
the point by the circumstance that during the cam- 
paign I served exclusively with Sudanese troops, and 
may, therefore, be considered impartial towards the 
fellaheen. Vandeleur, too, served in a Sudanese 
battalion, and had a similar opinion regarding the 
fellaheen. He held that, though the Sudanese might 
be considered the flower of the army, the fellaheen 
cavalry, artillery and infantry were absolutely trust- 
worthy troops ; and numerous examples of their 
quality can be brought forward to support this state- 
ment. There were no Sudanese artillery or cavalry 
yet the conduct of the fellaheen throughout the dan- 
gerous reconnaissances which they constantly under- 
took during four years of warfare places them high in 
the estimation of soldiers. Again the 2nd (fellaheen) 
Battalion formed an integral part of Macdonald's 
brigade which happened, at the Battle of Omdurman, 
to come in for the most desperate of all the fights of 
the campaign. This battalion had previously been 
noted for strict discipline, and, on the day of its trial, 
manoeuvred and fired with steadiness under the shock 
of two tremendous charges, delivered in quick succes- 
sion from different directions and repelled them both 
without flinching. Vandeleur who was present during 
the episode bore testimony to the behaviour of the 
fellaheen who were warmly praised by General Mac- 
donald himself. 

Yet how can it happen that in only fourteen years 
men's characters can be so essentially altered and im- 



134 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

proved as to justify the enconiums which I have quoted 
above ? It seems almost more marvellous than some 
of the other mysteries of Egypt, and yet is perfectly 
true. Men are made or marred by the treatment to 
which they are subjected. Let us disclose what that 
treatment had been in Egypt. 

No one will pretend that the fellah is by nature a 
fighting animal, but he is, nevertheless, capable of being 
trained to fight by officers whom he respects and believes 
in, and who themselves come of a fighting race. In the 
old army such officers were rare, but on the few occa- 
sions when they commanded the fellah he fought with 
pluck as at El Obeid (1883). As a rule, he was ill- 
used and flogged for petty offences ; his pay was inter- 
cepted ; he was not taught the business of a soldier 
but generally worked as a slave ; his barracks were 
insanitary, his food poor and no provision was ever 
made for sick or wounded ; the legal terms of his enlist- 
ment were disregarded, and he was never allowed to go 
liome on furlough. To be sent to the Sudan meant 
practically penal servitude for life, and so it was con- 
sidered by the man and his family. Indeed, so de- 
graded was the profession of arms that it would be 
difficult to devise a more certain system of destroying 
the spirit of any man, or knocking the manliness out 
of any soldier. 

The officers, drawn from the class which supplies 
Egypt with a bureaucracy and boasts a leaven of 
Turkish blood, were, in no sense, leaders of men. They 
possessed some intelligence and were fairly well edu- 
cated, but had no idea of discipline amongst themselves 
or confidence in one another. They were consumed 
with the spirit of intrigue, through which alone lay 
the avenue to promotion and lucrative posts. It did 
not occur to them either to share in or alleviate the 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 135 

privations of their men : nor were they under any 
obligation to accept unnecessary risks cither in the 
hour of battle or the gloom of a cholera camp. In 
fact, one of the best clays for Egypt occurred when the 
Khedive signed the laconic decree " the army is here- 
by disbanded." That was in 1882. 

The young British officers who subsequently under- 
took to organise and command the squadrons, bat- 
teries and battalions of the new army started the 
machine with a totally different conception of duty 
and military service to any which had hitherto pre- 
vailed. Indeed, the change was so bewildering to the 
native officers and men, that at first the task seemed 
hopeless. However, with stubborn insular determina- 
tion they persevered on their own lines, without com- 
promise, and without appearing to see any difficulty. 
Exact pay was handed out to the men on fixed dates ; 
good barracks, solid food and clean clothing were pro- 
vided ; the discipline was strict and carefully enforced ; 
promotion went solely by merit and no intrigue could 
avail to alter a selection ; furloughs were granted each 
year, and the men went home to their squalid villages 
smart in appearance and with plenty of money in their 
pockets. They were no longer ashamed of themselves 
or their calling. When their term of six years' service 
expired they left the colours to become local police 
men. Then came years of active service, first on the 
lines of communictition of Lord Wolseley's Nile expedi- 
tion, then on the frontier, continuously in touch with 
Dervishes, unsupported by other troops — with eyes 
always turned towards the desert and the enemy 
beyond. At intervals, the Dervishes would attack 
patrols, or raid villages, and a skirmish would take 
place, a more or less serious affair, but always a useful 
experience to an army in training. Two pitched 



136 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

battles, at Ginnis in 1885 and Toski in 1889, attested 
the progress of the force. The fellaheen soldier began 
to feel he was a man, in fact became one. He at last 
understood his British officers, those curious foreigners 
who insisted on every one doing his duty without shirk- 
ing, and who did it themselves ! In action there they 
were always in front, never excited : in cholera camp, 
still they were present working like slaves to stamp out 
the pestilence : always cheerful and approachable, yet 
maintaining their position as officers and the respect 
due to their rank. 

The fellah did not take to fighting for fighting's 
sake but he no longer feared to go into action, and, in 
fact, was sure he would win whenever he fought. A 
story is told of one battalion that the men were more 
terrified at the wrath of their commanding officer, if 
one man wavered, than ever they were of a Baggara's 
spear. Thus the private soldier responded to proper 
treatment, the Egyptian officer grumbled but did his 
duty, and the army grew into a formidable force 
— 16,000 men of splendid physique. It also helped 
to popularise the British occupation throughout the 
villages of Egypt. 

But if British officers have done much for the 
Egyptian army it is also plain to any one who served 
in it, that the Egyptian army has done a great deal for 
British officers. Indeed, it would be almost as difficult 
to exaggerate, as it certainly is to measure, the benefit 
our officers derived from service in the Khedive's forces 
— provided they served for a sufficient period to correct 
the narrow mihtarism inculcated at home. We have 
said that the treatment accorded to the soldiery of the 
old army was hkely to knock the manhness even out of 
a Samurai, and that a reversal of such methods quickly 
restored the men's pluck. Just in a similar way the 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 137 

home training of the British officer before the Boer war 
was calculated to stifle the most precious qualities an 
officer can possess — namely, resourcefulness and initia- 
tive — qualities which were rekindled and developed 
directly he joined the Egyptian army. 

I am not suggesting that our subalterns, who have 
much to learn especially as regards discipline and duty 
during the first years of their service, should be accorded 
free scope for misdirected initiative or ill-judged experi- 
ments ; but surely captains of companies and com- 
manding officers of battalions should not be sacrificed 
to a passion for uniformity which converts them into 
mechanical automatons, registering the innumerable 
decrees contained in the thirty-five volumes of regula- 
tions which compose every commanding officer's 
library ? Some were too sensible to devote much time 
to learning up, in peace, regulations which no one 
could possibly carry out in war, and such were reported 
as slack by the average staff officer, who was all- 
powerful and most meddlesome. Though the Alder- 
shot, Curragh and other brigades were, undoubtedly, 
commanded by able men, it is well known that some 
of the battalions were practically commanded by the 
brigade-major, who was encouraged to interfere to an 
intolerable degree with the commanding officers' work, 
in order to produce the desired uniformity and insist 
on the brigadiers' special fads being attended to in 
season and out of season. 

Throughout the army at home the zeal of the regi- 
mental officer was thus conffiied within the narrowest 
sphere ; all his actions were strictly laid down ; to 
deviate to the right or left, or to reverse the order of 
the prescribed routine was wrong; whether practising 
a stereotyped attack or digging a regulation shelter- 
trench, drilling a company or shooting at a target, 



138 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

every detail was printed in the books, as well as the 
exact words to be used by the instructor. Nothing 
was left to the intelligence of the individual, and on 
re-reading some of the text-books one is obliged to 
confess that officers were by regulation debarred from 
exercising either intelligence or common sense. Under 
such a blighting regime, how could regimental officers 
be expected to develop either initiative or resourceful- 
ness ? Their only means of escape from a dreary 
groove lay in hunting, polo and other games, or in 
going away on leave as often as they could. 

Our later e?^perience is that if you give the British 
officer sensible work to do he will usually do it extremely 
well and it was on this principle that the Egyptian 
army was started and run. To join it after some years 
of garrison duty at home was like walking into fresh 
air after a journey on the old underground railway. 
We have seen how the fellah was raised from the level 
of a coward to fight in line with European troops, 
and it is equally easy to understand how his officer 
resumed in the Sudan qualities which had been stifled 
in the United Kingdom. 

A young captain or subaltern on joining at Cairo 
usually has a personal interview of five minutes with 
the Sirdar, during which he is quietly told that he is to 
start for the Sudan in a couple of days, that on reaching 
his battalion he should pick up all he can about every- 
thing going on at the front, and that his most necessary 
accomplishment will be a colloquial acquaintance with 
the Arabic language, without which nobody can be of 
much use. His rank is bimbashi (major), and his duties 
areV various. He is not given any book of regulations, 
and, if he asks for one, is informed that some of the 
English text-books have been translated into Arabic 
for the use of the army, but that they have long been 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 139 

out of print— though second-hand ones are sometimes 
obtainable. Accordingly the budding bimbashi, per- 
haps a Httle shocked at the thought of the regulations 
being out of print and his exact itinerary not being 
detailed in writing, starts on his long journey to the 
Sudan by railway, steamboat, camel, and sailing-boat. 
In course of time he reaches his battahon, usually 
without his baggage, with the vaguest idea of the where- 
abouts of his horse and camel and in the mental con- 
dition commonly attributed to a lost sheep. But he 
has already learned one thing thoroughly, namely, 
that if he does not look after himself and his belongings 
no one else will do it for him. Thus his new training 
is well begun, and his days of mihtary dry-nursing are 
over. 

On reporting himself at the front the bimbashi is 
plunged into a battalion of Arabic-speaking officers, 
non-commissioned officers and men, of whom none but 
the commanding officer, the interpreter and three 
bimbashis can speak or understand the English langu- 
age. He is introduced to a form of drill similar to that 
of the British army, but with words of command 
dehvered in Turkish and explanations given in Arabic. 
He ascertains from his brother bimbashis that, by 
working hard for six months, he can acquire sufficient 
fluency in the new language for all practical purposes. 
So instead of attempting to learn a Turco-Arabic drill- 
book hke a parrot, he perceives that he must confine 
himself to essentials and first master such simple words 
of command as he may require if the battahon should 
be sent into action within a week. In fact, he realises 
that he must reverse the method commonly adopted 
of beginning at the beginning, and it dawns upon his 
mind — now emancipated from the detail of the goose- 
step and the firing exercise by numbers— that drill 



140 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

rightly understood and intelligently applied is a factor 
in winning battles. He is so much the richer by the 
acquisition of this new idea that his attitude towards 
the whole art of soldiering takes a practical turn, and 
he sees real reasons for things which have hitherto 
seemed tiresome and useless. From this moment his 
work becomes interesting, and, at the end of six months' 
probation, he feels he is a better officer and is in daily 
contact with better officers, because the initiative of 
each individual has produced the habit of responsible 
work throughout the force. As time passes, the new 
bimbashi is employed on numerous jobs, all essential 
to the continued progress of the campaign, with which 
he now identifies his own efforts. Whether it be hauUng 
steamers up cataracts, furnishing escorts to gunboat 
patrols, acting as station-master, postmaster, or supply 
officer, commanding a squadron, battery, camelry, or 
a fort, as brigade-major or staff officer — wherever 
British supervision is required there the bimbashi is to 
be seen, directing native officers and men, and dis- 
charging duties which in European armies are often 
entrusted to generals. With such varied and continu- 
ous employments during the intervals between import- 
ant actions, is it surprising that, compared with his 
brother in England, he becomes a handy-man and a 
distinct personage — useful in peace and invaluable in 
war ? 

If, on the other hand, a bimbashi should fail to 
profit by the opportunities thus offered, his place 
can easily be filled by one of the numerous candidates 
who are longing to take it. The work is hard, the 
sun hot, fevers are weakening, relaxations are few, but 
the service is popular, promotion is quick, the pay 
adequate, and the rewards ample. Moreover, since 
peace rules in the land, numerous responsible posts are 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 141 

open to bimbashis, and the service has not lost all the 
attractions which it held for the ambitious at the time 
of the campaigns. 

If in the foregoing pages I have been able to refresh 
the reader's memory as to the saUent features of the 
general situation and the conditions under which 
British officers serve the Khedive, it may be easier in 
future chapters to tell the tale of Lord Kitchener's 
operations and describe the part taken in them by 
Bimbashi Vandeleur. Meanwhile, those of my readers 
who care for dates will doubtless read the following 
synopsis, whereas those who dislike them may pass on 
to the story beyond — 

1798, July 21. — Battle of the Pyramids and defeat 
of the Mameluks by Napoleon. 

1798, Aug. I. — Battle of the Nile and defeat of the 
French fleet by Nelson. 

1801, March 8. — Battle of Aboukir : French evac- 
uate Egypt. British occupy Cairo. 

1803. — Egypt evacuated by British. 

181 1. — Mehemet Ah, an Albanian, massacres the 
Mameluks in Cairo citadel, and usurps the Pashahk of 
Egypt from Turkey. He founds a family which still 
holds the sovereignty. During the years which follow 
he organises a fighting army, which is so successful 
under Ibrahim that it constantly defeats large Turkish 
forces in Syria, and on two occasions has Constanti- 
nople at its mercy, but refrains from capturing this 

capital. 

1820. — Mehemet Ali sends his son to conquer and 

hold the Sudan. 

1838. — Mehemet Ah himself visits the Sudan, and 
organises conquering mihtary expeditions up the White 
Nile, Blue Nile, and into Kordofan. He converts the 



142 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Sudan into a place d'armes, imports quantities of war 
material and raises large local forces. 

N.B. — His object was to consolidate an independent 
Sudan Empire for his family, in the event of their being 
deprived of Egypt ; and the policy of arming the Sudan 
continued till 1882. Khartoum was the capital. 

1842. — Mehemet Ali builds the Barrage, below 
Cairo. 

1849. — Death of Mehemet Ali — a great man, born 
the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. 

1869. — Opening of the Suez Canal. Sir Samuel 
Baker appointed Governor-General of the Sudan. 

1874. — Colonel C. G. Gordon appointed Governor- 
General of the Sudan. 

1875. — Ismail Pasha, Khedive, one of the most 
extravagant rulers ever known, gradually ruins the 
finances of Egypt. When unable to raise further 
loans, he sells his holding in the Suez Canal Company to 
England for £4,000,000 (now worth £20,000,000). 
Conquest of Darfur by Zobair. 

1876. — Major Evelyn Baring (now Lord Cromer) is 
appointed a member of an international Commission 
of Inquiry into the Khedive's debts, and Egypt is 
found to be on the brink of financial ruin. 

1879. — Gordon's Governor-Generalship of the 
Sudan terminates. The Khedive Ismail is deposed 
and replaced by his son, Tewfik Pasha — at the in- 
stigation of England. 

1 88 1. — The Mahdi declares himself at Abba Island, 
White Nile. 

iSSi, Aug. — His followers massacre 200 Egyptian 
soldiers sent from Khartoum to arrest him. 

1881, Dec. 9. — Mahdi defeats 1400 Egyptians near 
Fashoda and captures their arms. 

1882. — The Mahdi's insurrection gradually spreads. 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 143 

1882, July II. — Bombardment of Alexandria by 
British fleet, owing to Arabi's revolt against the 
Khedive. 

1882, Sept. 13. — Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, followed by 
occupation of Cairo by British under Wolseley, and 
restoration of Khedive. 

1883, Jan. 17. — Mahdi takes the field in person and 
captures El Obeid after protracted siege. 

1883, Feb. — Ten thousand of Arabi's soldiers are 
sent to the Sudan as reinforcements by the Egyptian 
Government. 

1883, March. — Colonel Hicks, late of the Indian 
Army, arrives in Khartoum as Chief of the Staff. 

1883, Sept. — Hicks advances into Kordofan with 
9000 men and 20 guns, to attack the Mahdi. 

1883, Nov. 5. — Hicks' force annihilated at Shekan, 
near El Obeid. 

1883, Dec. — Slatin taken prisoner in Darfur. 
N.B. — By end of 1883 the Mahdi had captured at 

least 20,000 rifles, 19 guns and quantities of ammunition. 

1884, Jan. 16. — Gordon sent by Gladstone to 
evacuate the Sudan garrisons — Egyptian soldiers — 
namely, the remnant of the original 40,000 quartered 
in the Sudan. 

1884, Feb. 4. — Colonel V. Baker, sent to relieve 
Tokar with 3500 Egyptians and six guns, is completely 
defeated at El Teb by Osman Digna. 

1884, Feb. 18. — Gordon reaches Khartoum, tele- 
graphs to British Government that he " cannot 
evacuate and will not abandon the garrison," and 
asks for the assistance of Zobair. This is refused on 
moral grounds, because Zobair Pasha was once a 
slaver ! 

1884, Feb. 29. — British force of 3000 defeats Osman 
Digna at El Teb. 



144 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

1884, March 13. — Same force again defeats him 
at Tamaai, but is subsequently withdrawn to Suakin, 
which it holds. 

1884, March 19. — Gordon at Khartoum cut off and 
invested. 

1884, May 26. — Mahdi captures Berber, and the 
question is definitely put — Will England send a relief 
expedition or not ? The Nile will rise in July. The 
British Government takes no action. 

1884, Aug. 7. — Lord Hartington, Secretary of State 
for War, obtains a vote of credit, with a view to eventual 
relief of Gordon — " if necessary." 

1884, Sept. 10. — First portion of Relief Expedition 
leaves England. 

1884, Oct. 21. — Expedition leaves Wadi Haifa. 

1885, Jan. 17. — Battle of Abu Klea — Mahdists 
break into British square, but are beaten off. 

1885, Jan. 20. — Desert Column arrives at Gubat 
on the Nile, near Metemma, and is met by Gordon's 
four steamers next day. 

1885, Jan. 24. — These steamers embark a small 
force for Khartoum. 

1885, Jan. 26. — Khartoum falls and Gordon is 
killed. 

1885, Jan. 28. — Steamers sight Khartoum — too late! 

N.B. — By its capture the Dervishes become pos- 
sessed of quantities of rifles and munitions of war. 

1885, Feb. 14. — Retreat of Desert Column from 
Gubat to Dongola. 

1885, Feb. 17. — Contract for construction of a rail- 
way from Suakin to Berber signed by British Govern- 
ment. 

1885, Feb. 20. — Another Suakin Field Force organ- 
ised — about fifteen thousand men, British and Indian 
— to protect this railway. 



ENGLAND ON THE NILE 145 

1885, March 13. — Railway construction com- 
menced. 

1885, March 22.— McNeill's zariba— Arabs break 
into it. 

1885, May 17.— Suakin Field Force withdrawn and 
railway abandoned. 

1885, /2wg.— Death of the Mahdi, and succession 
of the KhaHfa. 

1885, July 5.— Dongola evacuated. Frontier 
handed over to Egyptian Army. 

1885, Dec. 30.— Battle of Ginnis. (Stephenson). 

1889, Aug. 3.— Battle of Toski, near Wadi Haifa- 
Dervish invasion of Egypt defeated by Grenfell (Sirdar). 

1895, Feb. 20.— Slatin escapes from Omdurman. 

1896, March i. — Battle of Adowa — defeat of 
Italians by Abyssinians. 

1896, March 20. — Dongola Expedition starts. 
(Kitchener, Sirdar). 

1896, Sept. 23. — Dongola occupied. 

1897, Atig. 7.— Battle of Abu Hamed. (Hunter.) 

1898, April 8.— Battle of the Atbara. (Kitchener.) 

1898, Sept. 2.— Battle of Omdurman. (Kitchener.) 

1899, Nov. 24.— Battle of El Gedid and death of 
the KhaUfa. (Wingate.) 

1900, Jan. I. — Railway completed from Wadi 
Haifa to Khartoum. 

1902, Nov. 8.— Gordon's College at Khartoum 
opened by Kitchener. 

1905-— Peace and plenty in the Sudan— see Lord 
Cromer's last Official Report. 



K 



CHAPTER VII 
THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 

See map facing page 238 

Whenever military errors are committed the general 
public is usually led to believe that the fault lies with 
the " stupid officer " on the spot. Yet there have been 
occasions in which the officer on the spot has saved the 
civilian in the Cabinet from the consequences of his 
ignorance, as the Egyptian Army was now to prove. 

In March 1896, a Cabinet Council was summoned 
at short notice to deliberate upon an unexpected event. 
The Prime Minister addressing his colleagues in a room 
at the Foreign Office, announced that a grave situation 
had arisen in one of the new colonies of the Kingdom of 
Italy. There was, unfortunately, truth in the public 
telegrams describing an Italian defeat in Abyssinia. 
King Menelek's army had, undoubtedly, gained a 
decisive victory over a considerable Italian force at 
Adowa, capturing some hundreds of prisoners. The 
probable fate of these wretched Europeans was horrible 
to contemplate, and England would willingly extend to 
Italy a helping hand in the north-east corner of Africa, 
where this regrettable occurrence took place. At 
Cairo we had a small British garrison, but Cairo being 
a considerable distance from Adowa, it would be diffi- 
cult for this garrison to render effective assistance. 
Under these circumstances, could any means be devised 
of helping Italy, without incurring undue risk ourselves ? 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 147 

At this point several ministers shifted uneasily in 
their chairs, putting on their spectacles and removing 
them nervously. One of the younger members begged 
that a map might be brought to assist them in their 
deliberations, and a messenger departed to fetch it. He 
returned with an atlas printed in 1882, that being the 
latest edition available. After some difficulty Cairo 
was found on one page and Abyssinia on another, but 
the intervening regions were nowhere shown. How- 
ever, on looking at the small general map of Africa, 
some one remarked that Cairo did not after all appear 
very far distant from Abyssinia, and those who had 
been uneasy were reassured ! 

Meanwhile, a Cabinet Minister who had lately 
travelled up the Nile to Wadi Haifa sent to his ofiice for 
a bigger, modern map. On arrival it covered the table 
in the middle of the room, though it only represented 
the Nile valley from Cairo to Khartoum. At the men- 
tion of Khartoum there was an awkward pause and 
one or two murmurs of apprehension* — so the Prime 
Minister quickly pointed out that there was no inten- 
tion of undertaking the reconquest of the Sudan, but 
that a demonstration on the northern frontier of the 
Khalifa's empire might cause that potentate to refrain 
from attacking our Italian friends' garrison at Kassala, 
which was at that moment threatened. This, though 
still somewhat alarming, sounded less dangerous, 
especially as the Prime Minister, who meant to have 
his way, proceeded to state that the Egyptian Army 
had a force at Wadi Haifa, and that it might be pos- 
sible for this force to advance a little distance south. 
The heads now bent over the map to discover where 

* One member of the Cabinet had been Secretary of State for War 
in Mr. Gladstone's administration, during which all the military 
failures in the Sudan occurred, 



148 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

the Egyptian Army had a post, and the Minister who 
had seen it explained to his colleagues how efficient 
the garrison was. Moreover, the name Wadi Haifa 
was printed in large, block letters which gave it a solid 
look. Southwards the names, Akasha, Firkeh, Kosheh, 
(in small ty]x%) looked comparatively insignificant, and 
as if a small force could easily occupy one of them, so 
each was suggested in tm-n. But the Minister who had 
been up the Nile and knew what he was talking about 
put his finger on the big block letters — dongola — 
and suggested that, if any advance at all were advisable, 
the occupation of Dongola might have some influence 
on the Khalifa, whereas to occupy a small mud village 
whose inhabitants the Dervishes had already exter- 
minated could have no effect. 

However the Cabinet dispersed without coming to 
any decision, beyond a request to the Commander-in- 
Chief to write a minute on the feasibility of an advance 
— not an expedition — to an unnamed spot south of 
Wadi Haifa. A few of England's councillors left the 
room with a vague recollection of some unfamiliar 
African names which had been referred to on the map, 
and one aged politician in particular was so bewildered 
that when, in the street, a reporter of his acquaintance 
hurriedly asked him what the meeting had been con- 
cerned with, he could remember nothing but the word 
'* Dongola," which he murmured unconsciously. 

That afternoon the Commander-in-Chief sat at his 
desk composing a minute which he knew would be 
futile, when suddenly his ear caught sound of the word 
" Dongola " — shouted by newsboys down in the street. 
By spending a halfpenny he learned that the subject 
of his minute had been settled without him, and that 
he might spare himself further effort that day. 

In the evening to all parts of the British Empire the 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 149 

various press-associations telegraphed the welcome 
report that the long-delayed Nile expedition was to 
start, and that Dongola would be its objective — nor 
was this the first time a hesitating administration has 
had its hand forced by a smart reporter possessing the 
gift of intelligent anticipation.* 

The news was everywhere received with approba- 
tion, and the Cabinet had to decide whether it should 
be categorically denied or confirmed. Much depended 
upon the views held by Lord Cromer, the strong man 
directing the destiny of Egypt and by the Sirdar, Sir 
Herbert Kitchener, neither of whom were expecting 
any call to arms. Had they flinched, as lesser men 
might have done, from undertaking a campaign at the 
season of lowest Nile and with no opportunity of pre- 
paring for desert warfare on a large scale, it is probable 
that the reconquest of the Sudan would have been 
indefinitely postponed. Had either of them begged for 
a short space of time — that valuable factor which 
British Cabinets never accord to British generals before 
either plunging or drifting into war — the opportunity 
might have been lost. They, therefore, telegraphed to 
London that the Egyptian army could move south- 
wards at once and the premature newspaper reports 
were accordingly confirmed. By March 20 — that is 
within three weeks of the Italian defeat at Adowa, and 
within a week of any advance being thought of — Major 
John Collinson had covered eighty-five miles to Akaslia, 
in command of the 13th Sudanese battalion, with two 
squadrons of cavalry, one company of camelry, one 
battery of artillery and a couple of machine guns. 
Thus the gauntlet was boldly flung down on the desert 

* Note the contrast between this and the arrangements made by 
Bismarck and Moltkc for the invasions of Schleswig-Holstein 1864. 
Austria 1866, France 1870 ; and by the Japanese in Manchuria 1904. 



150 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

sand within a single day's march of 3000 Dervishes at 
Firkeh, and the reconquest of the Sudan had com- 
menced. So ready was the Egyptian Army for active 
service that the troops at Wadi Haifa started at dawn on 
the day following their first orders to move. 

The advance guard thus thrust forward confined 
itself to fortifying a defensive position, patrolling in 
all directions and protecting convoys from the base, 
whilst the master-mind of the Sirdar bent itself to the 
task of rapidly building up at Akasha an army and its 
stores, destined to recapture the Dongola Province and 
hold it against any probable attack. 

During this necessary pause for preparation, let 
us glance at the problem confronting the General and 
the methods he adopted to solve it. 

The expression Nile valley is conveniently used to 
denote the wide belt of country crossed by the river on 
its long journey from the Victoria Nyanza to the Medi- 
terranean Sea, but is by no means descriptive of the 
scene, because no valley is visible to the eye, nor does 
the landscape bear the remotest resemblance to valleys 
such as those of the Rhine or the Thames. The 
scenery has a beauty and colouring of its own which 
cannot be likened or compared with that of other lands. 
In the mid-day sun the chiselled lines of rocky hill strike 
hard and clear against a steel-blue sky without a cloud. 
At sunset all is softened by the vivid colours in the west, 
and a weird calm broods over the landscape. The Nile 
itself, when not in flood, resembles a giant canal 
humbly flowing at the bottom of a vast ditch, flanked 
by perpendicular banks of sun-baked mud : the top of 
these banks is level with the surrounding country, yet 
the masts of vessels sailing over the water are unseen, 
and the maxim at the mast-head of a gunboat cannot 
be aimed at distant objects. But at full-flood the 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 151 

canal has grown into a tumultuous tide of surging water, 
brim-full to the bank's top and almost even with the 
desert. The gunboat, seen from a distance, now 
towers above the land and looks as if it were steaming 
across country. The canal-like appearance of the 
river is further heightened by the action of the so- 
called "cataracts," which are really miles and miles of 
rocky boulders and islands, obstructing the waterway 
and holding up the water-level — like rough-hewn locks 
devised by mighty Titans. Without them, the Nile 
would have such a rapid faU that it would either run 
dry or degenerate into a string of pools during half the 
year ; and on the flood would become an unmanageable 
torrent. For this peculiar river, which is wider and 
deeper at Khartoum than at Cairo and flows unfed 
by rain or tributary stream during the last 1500 
miles of its course, rises twenty-six feet in a couple 
of months, and submerges the cataracts deep below 
its surface — so great is the rainfall at its distant 
sources. From Abyssinian mountains 2000 miles from 
Cairo, and from equatorial lakes and marshes 3000 
miles to the south, the abundant waters travel down 
the canal through parched lands and deserts, every- 
where producing in August, September and October 
the annual marvel of the flood, which men have 
watched and worshipped since the dawn of their 
earliest history. To ignore this prodigy of nature when 
engaged on a campaign or in the pursuit of agriculture, 
is as fatal as to neglect the seasons of the solar year in 
other lands. It spells disaster. Yet it was through 
neglect of this obvious factor that the first Sudan 
expeditions organised in London ended in failure 
whereas those directed from Cairo succeeded, and that 
the failures cost England many millions of pounds, 
whereas the successes cost her only £800,000 spent on 



152 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

railways. The truth is that for the invasion of the 
Sudan a knowledge of how and when to work boats up 
dangerous cataracts is of infinitely greater value than 
the information supplied in military text-books. 

Right methods were, therefore, only employed after 
the Consul-General at Cairo had rescued the govern- 
ment of Egypt from the hands of politicians in England, 
and when the direction of the forces engaged in Sudan 
operations was placed in the hands of officers who 
studied their job on the spot and discarded without 
fear military notions which experience proved to be 
fads. It is no exaggeration to assert that any of the 
Sirdar's battalions could at any time have marched out 
from its quarters on the frontier to engage in a battle 
like Abu Klea or one of the numerous British engage- 
ments around Suakim. A Dervish Emir, if he sees a 
tempting opportunity, will almost invariably launch an 
attack, and the art of fighting him consists in giving 
him no such opening until it suits the invading force to 
be attacked with a chance of victory, yielding results 
worth fighting for. To blunder forward in ignorance of 
the whereabouts of the enemy and be " unexpectedly 
attacked " in the scrub is not a manoeuvre calculated to 
defeat Dervishes. Such battles may be won by the 
valour and discipline of junior officers and their men, but 
do not display much acquaintance with the business of 
war. They are usually followed by necessary retreats 
to obtain water and supplies, and have to be constantly 
repeated until one side or the other is worn out. Now, 
Sir Herbert Kitchener's conception of Sudan warfare 
was of a different type. In the first place he armed 
himself during peace with an intelligence department, 
under Major Wingate, which devoted its whole energies 
year in and year out to collecting and studying every 
scrap of news regarding what occurred at Omdurman 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 153 

and the provinces of the Khahfa's dominion. Through 
this agency, which was materially strengthened by the 
escape of Slatin Pasha from Omdurman, the general 
was well posted with accurate information about his 
enemy. 

His quick advance to Akasha was, therefore, not a 
blind move in a southerly direction in obedience to 
orders from London, but a deliberate plan for getting 
into touch with a substantial Dervish force at Firkeh 
and reconnoitring it at leisure, whilst the Egyptian 
army mobilised in rear and became gradually perfected 
in the thousand and one details which just make the 
difference between brigades trained by their own officers 
and a haphazard assemblage of armed units. If only 
the Dervishes at Firkeh could be kept in play for a few 
months, even at the risk of their being meanwhile 
reinforced, it would be possible to utilise the whole 
army in the forward move to Dongola — backed by a 
railway to be constructed round 200 miles of con- 
secutive cataracts, and strengthened at high Nile 
by gunboats which would then be able to ascend the 
river. For it must be borne in mind that above Wadi 
Haifa the river's course is obstructed by rocks and 
boulders of the most forbidding granite, which extend 
all the way to the navigable water of the Dongola 
province. They constitute the most formidable series 
of cataracts encountered along the whole course of the 
Nile, and are bordered by vast uninhabited deserts of 
sand and rocky hills— locally termed the " belly of 
rocks." Akasha, a small deserted village situated on 
the river's bank in the midst of this barren land, became 
on the arrival of the advanced guard, the point of 
concentration of the scattered corps of the Egyptian 
army. From Suakin, Cairo, Assouan and Wadi 
Haifa, squadrons, batteries and battalions trickled into 



154 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Akasha, and for three months the Httle place loomed 
large in the eyes of all who take an interest in the affairs 
of our Empire. After the first week the advanced guard 
was increased to a brigade of all arms commanded by a 
Major ; it subsequently grew into a division of three 
brigades commanded by a Colonel under forty years of 
age. To supply such a force in this wilderness and 
southwards was the problem of the hour, a problem, 
too, which must be solved on economical lines. No one 
understood better than the thoughtful soldier who con- 
ducted operations that the future prosecution of the 
campaign depended on its being both cheaply managed 
and successfully fought. He could afford neither to 
waste money nor hazard a military reverse, nor even to 
indulge in a regrettable incident. Thirteen years of 
experience had taught him that most of our failures 
had been due to starting too late, and being con- 
sequently in too great a hurry. 

For immediate necessities 5000 camels were pur- 
chased to work convoys between railhead at Sarras 
and Akasha. But camels are an expensive and 
perishable form of transport, requiring constant 
consideration in the matter of food and rest. The 
Sirdar, therefore, decided to reconstruct the old torn- 
up railway, started but never completed by Ishmail 
Pasha in the days of Egypt's unchecked extravagance. 
Railway work was begun forthwith, and a long chapter 
might pleasantly be devoted to the romance of building 
the Sudan Military Railway, were it not that our brief 
resume can only spare it a few sentences. The Sirdar's 
idea was to build it on military lines with labour con- 
trolled by young bimbashis from the Royal Engineers 
and, as the campaign progressed, it developed into a great 
achievement. Long before any of the experts at home 
had grasped the necessities of the situation. Sir Herbert 



THE ECxYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 155 

Kitchener had made his plans, worked out their 
cost and begun to order his material. When it was 
discovered that the section between Wadi Haifa and 
Dongola Province involved nearly 200 miles of line, 
the War Office offered to send out a full Colonel and 
the usual staff for such an undertaking. But the 
Sirdar pointed out that a subaltern on the spot, 
Bimbashi Girouard, fully satisfied his requirements 
and that this young officer preferred to build the line 
without the " usual " staff. In the sequel Girouard 
and a dozen brother subalterns constructed and 
operated 780 miles of railway under difficult and 
entirely novel conditions, and may fairly claim to 
have conquered the Sudan on an iron horse. 

By the first week in June the situation was as 
follows, and all was ready for the first battle of the 
campaign. Suakim, Tokar and their neighbourhood 
were safely held by a brigade of the Indian army. 
Egypt was protected by a brigade, of British troops. 
Wadi Haifa was garrisoned by a battalion of British 
infantry. The new railway was completed to within 
one day's camel-march of Akasha, where gooo rnen 
were concentrated with ample supplies within striking 
distance of the enemy. 

Meanwhile the Dervishes at Firkeh had not been 
idle, nor was the Khalifa at Omdurman unaware of the 
impending attack. But they knew not what to think 
of our prolonged delay, and finally put it down to 
hesitation and fear. Fifty notable Emirs commanded 
the various detachments at Firkeh whom they disposed 
in a fortified position of some strength — intending to 
issue forth and attack at the first favourable oppor- 
tunity. Almost daily they reconnoitred the outpost 
line which surrounded Akasha and frequently had 
brushes with Egyptian patrols. They had plenty of 



156 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

spies in and about the Egyptian camp in the shape of 
camel-drivers and villagers on adjacent Nile islands. 
But as week after week passed without any aggressive 
action the Dervishes were lulled into a false sense of 
security. The Egyptian cavalry, admirably led by 
Bimbashi Broadwood, meanwhile reconnoitred the 
enemy's stronghold without ever offering themselves 
as a target for overwhelming attack. So the Emirs 
openly boasted in their camp that the "infidel Kafirs" 
were too terrified to hazard a fight with the chosen 
warriors of the Khalifa, whilst in truth the Sirdar was 
preparing his blow and acquiring exact knowledge upon 
which to base his action. 

On June 6, 1896, keeping his intentions secret until 
the last moment, Kitchener suddenly issued detailed 
orders to all units to make a night march on Firkehand 
assault it at dawn. A complete surprise was aimed at, but 
being a most difficult thing to achieve, any commander 
is lucky if he brings off a partial surprise only. In this 
instance fortune favoured the scheme — for at three in 
the afternoon, when the force was actually parading 
in camp for its night march, Osman Azrak, the chief 
Dervish Emir, lay in observation on a hill near our out- 
posts. As he watched, clouds of dust — a common 
feature of the country — obscured the view, and after 
waiting a little he retired with his horsemen and re- 
ported at Firkeh that the Turks lay quiet as usual ! 

For the niglit march the Sirdar distributed the 
troops in two columns which were to move by different 
routes and attack simultaneously, if possible. The 
small column, some 2000 strong, all mounted on 
camels or horses, included a battery of horse 
artillery, seven squadrons of cavalry, eight companies 
of camel-corps and a battalion of Sudanese infantry 
riding transport camels for the occasion. This colunni, 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 157 

commanded by Major Burn-Murdoch, moved from 

Akasha just before sunset and took a desert road 

leading round the enemy's position. Its orders were 

to occupy certain hills behind the Dervish flank by 

4.30 A.M., and then to wait and co-operate with the 

main attack. The larger column under the personal 

command of the Sirdar was composed of two field 

batteries, one maxim battery and a division of infantry, 

the latter under Colonel Hunter, whose Brigadiers 

were Majors Maxwell, MacDonald and Lewis. It 

marched off about 4 p.m. along the river track which 

leads direct to Firkeh village, fourteen miles — a 

narrow and difficult path for an army to follow in the 

dark. The moon rose late, and the nine infantry 

battalions tramped silently through the darkness, 

strung out along a narrow track, at one time stumbHng 

over rocks and boulders, at others ankle-deep in soft 

sand. Not a sound was audible save the crunch of 

boots and the occasional rattle of a rifle against the 

accoutrements, as the men pressed eagerly onwards. 

To their right the swish of the river, forcing its way 

through rockstrewn cataracts, muffled all noises into 

one monotonous murmur. To their left high hills of 

granite throwing out spurs to the river's edge caused 

delays to the column as it passed them in single file. 

The darkness was intense, but by midnight the force 

was concentrated and lay down to rest on a level and 

sandy plain — within four miles of its objective. At 

2.30 it moved on by moonlight and trickled man by 

man through a gorge, while in front the way seemed 

barred by a mountain mass rising goo feet above the 

river and leaving the narrowest of defiles from which 

the battahons must debouch within shot of the enemy's 

advanced post. Suddenly in the stillness of the night 

drums were heard beating a mile to the front. The 



\ 



158 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Dervishes must be on the alert ! Would they charge 
the head of the column in the defile ? But the sound 
died down. It had been but the usual call to morning 
prayer in the Dervish dem. Had not Osman Azrak 
with his own eyes seen the infidels quiet in their camp, 
just as they had been any day these two months past ? 
Onwards pressed the column till dawn . Then rapidly 
the leading battalion, loth Sudanese, deployed into 
line across the defile — the keen active blacks grinning 
with pleasure at the prospect of a fight, every man 
intently watching for the first sign of the hated Baggara, 
yet drilled to listen and wait for the orders of his 
officers. This fine battalion, which had recently been 
engaged in a brush with Osman Digna at Suakin, was 
from commanding officer to recruit a remarkable blend 
of civilised discipline and primitive manhood, a living 
example of the virtues of England grafted to the valour 
of Equatoria. It pushed on in line over ground broken 
by scrub, high grass and stunted trees ; paused for 
the remainder of Lewis's brigade to deploy on either 
side, and to give time to MacDonald's brigade, still 
hemmed between mountain and river, to prolong the 
line to the left. Daylight now appeared ; the moment 
for swift action was at hand ; yet no further sound or 
sign revealed the enemy's presence. Quick orders 
from the Sirdar at the front hurried MacDonald round 
the base of the mountain, which trended away from 
the river and gave place to a dry kor in which to deploy 
out of sight — with open ground in front. Maxwell's 
brigade too was hustled through the defile as minutes 
were precious. Suddenly a single shot rang out high up 
on the mountain side. It was the Dervish outpost's 
first alarm. Other shots quickly followed as the out- 
post fell back. The rocky ridge in front opened fire. 
The loth replied with crashes of volley firing. Away 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 159 

in the distance beyond the Dervishes the Sirdar heard 
the report of his horse artillery in action, and knew that 
his two columns would combine. It was 5.30 a.m. 
The simultaneous attack had begun. The surprise 
of the enemy was complete. 

With the opening of a battle, a commander's task 
is temporarily ended. The art of generalship is to 
dispose troops within touch of their enemy in such 
tactically superior positions and at such a tactically 
favourable moment that — if their fighting qualities are 
superior to those of the opponent — the victory shall be 
decisive and far-reaching. The attack once launched 
must be left to the initiative of subordinate officers and 
the valour of the men. In this instance the brigadiers 
were men of forty, the commanders of battalions men 
of about thirty-three and the bimbashis still younger. 
Their battle-leading, dictated by common sense and 
experience, gave the Dervishes not one chance in a 
hundred. Nevertheless the enemy, stubborn and 
defiant in spite of his flank being turned before the 
action began, fought with the old courage of his race — 
neither giving nor expecting quarter. 

When MacDonald had deployed, he and Lewis 
pushed home their attacks — the former against the 
Dervish right the latter against their left, posted at the 
village of Firkeh on the river bank. Maxwell — held in 
reserve — soon pressed forward to cover the gap between 
these two brigades. A field battery and the maxims 
found good positions on a slope of Firkeh mountain, 
whence they fired over the heads of the attacking 
infantry. The desert column had strict orders to keep 
out of the line of fire of our main attack and therefore 
confined its action to long-range shooting of a useful 
character. 

The scheme of the night march and deployment at 



i6o SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

daylight had been so carefully planned and carried out 
that the actual fighting was short, sharp and decisive. 
The scene of action, in which men contended like tiny 
ants in a wilderness of lonely desert, resembled a toy 
arena, as the men in khaki advanced and the white- 
robed Dervishes hurried from village and camp to man 
their walls and trenches. The fortified position — a 
mile and a half long — extended across level ground by 
the Nile to a rocky ridge in the desert. From loop- 
holed walls, houses and breastworks, a spluttering fire 
of Remington rifles was directed on the Egyptian and 
Sudanese battalions as they advanced to the assault. 

While Lewis's brigade swung to the right to attack 
the village and engage in close fighting with its 
defenders, MacDonald and his Sudanese were charged 
by a gallant band of Baggara horse, who all perished in 
their attempt. Wheeling his left well forward so as to 
envelop the Dervish flank MacDonald assaulted the 
ridge with great dash, shooting and bayoneting its 
brave defenders and driving them out of their breast- 
works to another ridge in rear. Pressing impetuously 
forward the Sudanese drove the enemy down one hill 
and up another, always swinging their left forward, until 
at the end of the action the brigade faced the river and 
hemmed the flying enemy against its shore. Some 
escaped by swimming, others sought cover below the 
bank ; all in the open were routed or killed. Mean- 
while Lewis carried the village, Maxwell occupied the 
enemy's dem or camp, and the Desert Column took up 
the pursuit with cavalry, horse artillery and camel- 
corps, a pursuit which was continued to Fereig, sixty-five 
miles distant, during the following days. By 7.30 a.m. 
the general action was over, though a number of Arabs 
still maintained a desperate resistance in the houses and 
courtyards. So the long straggling village had to be 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK i6i 

cleared by the three brigades — some lOO corpses being 
afterwards counted in one group of buildings. The 
enemy's casualties numbered 780 dead, 500 wounded, 
and 600 prisoners. The Sirdar's Ust amounted to one 
British officer wounded and 103 of other ranks killed 
and wounded. Such was indeed a small price to pay 
for a decisive and complete victory, and on this account 
some critics have concluded that the action was unim- 
portant. But surely the value of a victory should be 
measured, not by the length of the casualty list, but by 
the ultimate effect of defeat on the conquered and the 
advantages reaped by the victors. 

At Firkeh the Dervish " Empire " sustained a blow 
which paralysed its military enterprise for a year, 
whilst the Egyptian army gathered self-confidence and 
prestige. Had the victory been less decisive or had the 
Dervishes been able to claim a minor success, there is 
no doubt that further desperate fighting would have 
been necessary before peace could have been restored to 
the Dongola province, and few who recollect the circum- 
stances of the moment can affirm that Sir Herbert 
Kitchener would have been the man entrusted with 
the supreme command of the forces subsequently sent 
to reconquer the Sudan. Through his victory at 
Firkeh, he gained the approval of the Home Govern- 
ment ; the Egyptian army showed it could win British 
battles without aid from British troops and the 
operations continued to be directed by the youthful 
general and his officers, instead of by older men and 
inexperienced troops from home stations. Moreover 
the British pubhc became keenly interested in the 
further prosecution of the war and none heeded the 
various croakers who in England always side with 
England's enemies and foretell disaster to every British 
enterprise. 



i62 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

After burying the dead and enlisting the prisoners 
into the Sudanese battaUons, the Sirdar distributed 
the force in several camps south of Firkeh and busied 
himself with preparations for the forward move^ which 
would place him upon an open reach of the river and in 
military' occupation of the province of Dongola. It 
was an anxious period of hard work in the hottest 
months of the year and in the hottest part of the 
Sudan. Moreover the good fortune which had hitherto 
attended the undertaking seemed to desert it and 
everything went contrary. Before operations could 
be resumed railway construction must be completed to 
the advanced base at Kosheh : gunboats and sailing- 
boats had to be passed up the cataracts on the rising 
Nile : and food and stores accumulated at the front. 
The labour for these undertakings and the directing 
control must be provided by the army and its officers. 
Unfortunately the Nile rose late and delayed the work : 
instead of the usual north winds, which enable sailing 
boats to ascend the rapids, it blew for forty consecutive 
days from the south : the desert which for half a 
century had known no rain was deluged by violent 
cyclonic storms and several miles of railway embank- 
ment were washed completely away, leaving the rails 
hanging in festoons amidst the wreckage : worst of all 
an epidemic of cholera broke out in Egypt, ascended the 
Nile and attacked the army in a virulent form. Each 
of these misfortunes was exceptional and peculiar to 
1896, yet all descended upon the troops during July 
and August and nearly wrecked the expedition. It 
required the Sirdar's highest powers of rapid organisa- 
tion and decision to deal with each occurrence in turn, 
and he displayed his quality in a marked degree — as 
will never be forgotten by those who saw him at work. 

The epidemic killed off 919 out of 1218 attacked, and 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 163 

the usual horrors of a cholera camp were present day 
and night. The bimbashis and their men struggled 
with gunboats and sailing-boats in the river, at railway- 
construction and repairs in the desert, and with the 
nightmare of a deadly disease. If the Dervishes had 
not been so thoroughly beaten, what an opportunity 
for counter-attacks ! 

However, by dint of perseverance on the part of the 
army and a cool head on the shoulders of its commander, 
difficulties were overcome as they arose. Four gun- 
boats and three steamers were hauled by manual labour 
up the worst cataracts ; a refreshing wind from the 
north at last enabled the flotilla of sailing-boats to stem 
the swift current of the Nile ; the railway was repaired 
by supreme efforts in seven days, and was then com- 
pleted to Kosheh, where stores for some months were 
collected. The British battalion at Wadi Haifa was 
moved to the front ; a fourth brigade (Fellaheen) 
under Major David was added to Colonel Hunter's 
division ; on September 12 all was ready for the march 
on Dongola, and the trials of officers and men were 
forgotten in the exhilaration of the advance. 

Meanwhile the Dervishes under Wad Bishara — a 
young Emir and a fine specimen of the Arab fighting 
chief — had been reinforced from Omdurman and 
numbered nearly 8000 regulars, besides a contingent of 
local tribesmen of little or no military value. That this 
Emir and his men meant fighting there can be no doubt, 
for Wad Bishara had shown his mettle in many an 
action in Darfur where he held supreme command until 
replaced by the Khalifa's cousin, Mahmud. But the 
defeat at Firkeh had somewhat diminished that absolute 
certainty of victory, without which Moslem soldiers are 
not seen at their best. In civilised forces, such as the 
Egyptian and Indian armies, discipline, esprit de corps 



i64 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

and mutual confidence make fanaticism unnecessary ; 
but, in armies where discipline depends on personal 
influence, fanaticism of one sort or another is essential 
to success. The Dervishes have always been brave 
fighters, prepared to die in battle for their cause and 
ready to sell their lives dearly when cornered, but 
long years of easy victories over inferior enemies 
followed by the unrestrained pillage of the conquered 
had deadened the spiritual power of their early fanatic- 
ism. In the days of the Mahdi it was glorious to die 
in battle for the sake of religion and to free the land 
from alien tyrants. It was a different thing to fight as 
a mercenary in the army of a despotic Khalifa. Yet so 
great is the warlike instinct of the tribes of the Sudan, 
that, if only the Dervishes could score a single success 
against the Egyptians, Wad Bishara and the Sirdar 
both knew that they would at once become a formidable 
military force. The tactics of these two commanders 
were therefore simple and straightforward. The Sirdar 
meant to give his enemy no opportunity of winning 
even a minor action : Wad Bishara, after stemming 
the flight from Firkeh, was determined not to suffer a 
second defeat, but hoped to fall upon some detachment 
of Egyptians and quicken the spirit of his men by a 
taste of victory. He accordingly moved northwards 
from Dongola with his whole force, crossed the Nile 
and occupied a position at Kerma, a hundred miles 
south of Kosheh on the same side of the river. From 
thence he sent out strong patrols, which cut the tele- 
graph wire behind Kitchener's leading brigade and 
fought our cavalry without decisive results. Mean- 
while, instead of using their superior mobility, the 
Dervishes sat passively in this position, whilst the 
invading army concentrated within seven miles of 
them, ready for another destructive swoop like that of 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 165 

Firkeh: but Wad Bishara, more alert and better 
informed than Osman Azrak, had an alternative plan, 
and, as soon as he reahsed that he could neither stop 
the main advance nor overwhelm a detachment, he 
suddenly withdrew across the river and placed its 
flooded waters between himself and destruction. 
Meanwhile the Sirdar's force was ordered to deploy 
at sunrise and assault Kerma. At that hour it ac- 
cordingly advanced majestically to the attack, but 
the carefully planned manoeuvre proved abortive, 
because the Dervishes had abandoned their intrench- 
ments that night. A mile beyond, at Haiir on the 
further bank, a small steamer — sad relic of Gordon's 
ingenuity — and a fleet of boats indicated what had 
happened, so the Egyptian advance was continued till 
the two forces faced one another, with only the Nile 
between them. At 6.30 a.m. the infantry, disappointed 
of its prey, sat down to watch as spectators a naval 
action between our three gunboats — the fourth had 
been sunk on a rock in the cataracts — and a fortified 
village. The Dervish position occupied three-quarters 
of a mile of the bank and was cunningly devised to 
shelter its defenders and afford them a good field of 
fire towards the river. Entrenchments, thick mud 
walls, houses and pits covered the bank. Five brass 
guns in gun-pits were mounted close to the water's 
edge ; a number of riflemen had climbed the tall palm- 
trees which waved overhead and, concealed by the 
foliage, commanded the decks of boats. At intervals 
the coloured flags of the principal Emirs, blazoned with 
texts from the Koran, bid defiance to the invaders, and, 
in the desert beyond, the broad-bladed spears of the 
Baggara horse flashed in the sun as the riders brandished 
their arms. 

Directly the gunboats were ready for action, the 



i66 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

horse battery opened fire, and was answered by a 
splutter of musketry along the whole line of intrench- 
ments, indicating that they were thickly occupied from 
end to end. Then, one by one the three gunboats 
struggled against the current to within range of the 
Dervishes and became targets for a formidable fire, 
which splashed like hail all over them and cut the 
water around them into foam. From the palm-tops 
the fire was especially galling, as it searched the decks 
and enfiladed the slight shields of both maxims and 
guns. One Dervish shell penetrated the Abu Klea at 
the water-line and entered the magazine, but did not 
explode. Several shells struck the Metemma. Com- 
mander Colville, R.N., on the Tamai, was severely 
wounded in the wrist, and casualties occurred on all the 
boats. Their practice on the entrenchments sent clouds 
of dust into the air and did some execution, but without 
subduing the enemy's fire. The bold riflemen in the 
tree-tops were frequently dropped like young rooks on 
a spring day, but the Dervish fire scarcely slackened, 
and the gunboats had to turn tail amidst the jeers of 
the Arabs and run down-stream to make good their 
injuries. Again they moved up-stream and renewed 
the attack with no better success. At the end of three 
hours' engagement hardly any progress had been made, 
and it was obvious to the Sirdar that other tactics must 
be adopted. He accordingly directed the gunboats 
once more to run the gauntlet, but to proceed at full 
steam in line abreast without attempting to reply to 
the Dervishes, and to run on thirty-five miles to the 
town of Dongola and attack the enemy's base and line 
of communications. 

This movement was prepared and supported by long 
range infantry volleys across the river and by the fire 
of all the batteries at 1300 yards. It proved more 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 167 

effective, though it did not completely subdue the 
Dervishes. The palm-tree riflemen were dislodged, 
the five brass guns were silenced, the Arab steamer 
sunk, and, under cover of these results, the gunboats 
steamed past the entrenchments. At eleven o'clock 
the action subsided into desultory firing which lasted 
throughout the hot day — a reminder to tlie opposing 
armies that neither side could yet claim a victory. The 
Egyptian losses were insignificant. Wad Bishara had 
200 dead and many wounded. He himself was hurt 
by a splinter and was nervous about his line of re- 
treat since the gunboats had gone south. During the 
night he attempted to revictual his force from the 
stores of grain which lay in his boats by the bank, but 
the moon in the Sudan is bright — brighter than else- 
where — and the watchful Egyptian gunners drove away 
all who tried to carry provisions to the shore. Wad 
Bishara was therefore obliged to evacuate Hafir, abandon 
his boats and beat a hast}^ retreat on Dongola. By day- 
light the place was forsaken, and the villagers were 
easily persuaded to bring over the boats to the Sirdar. 
He at once commenced crossing the river with his 
whole force, and it is evidence of the efficient methods 
of the Egyptian army that by means of only two small 
steamers and fifty captured boats 14,000 men, 24 guns, 
3000 horses, mules and camels, and five days' supplies 
for all concerned were ferried across a wide and rapid 
river in thirty hours, with only one casualty — a lamed 
horse. Yet there were no special landing facilities on 
either bank, and the animals had to be lifted b}^ men 
into boats, their legs tied together to prevent kicking. 
It is by similar feats over material obstacles that an 
organising brain gains victories for its side — victories 
which perhaps only the student of military history 
recognises and admires. 



i68 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

The remainder of this year's campaign (1896) can 
be related in a few words. Having got the Dervishes 
fairly on the run and obtained naval command of a 
clear waterway at either high or low Nile, the Sirdar 
pressed his advantage without hesitation. Even before 
the troops had all crossed, the leading brigades were 
heading for Dongola which the gunboats had busily 
bombarded. 

Would Bishara stand and fight ? was the question 
every man was asking : and it is certain that the Emir 
himself was as anxious as any one in either force to 
hazard a battle. Indeed he constantly harassed the 
Egyptian outposts six miles from Dongola during their 
halt. But Wad Bishara was dealing with occurrences 
beyond his control and with an enemy who gave him 
few openings. For on the following morning at 4.30 
the Sirdar was again moving to the attack and, after 
the sun rose and lighted up the level sands of the 
desert, the two armies were again facing one another. 
The Egyptian force extended for two miles across the 
plain, a thin line of marching men, strengthened at 
intervals by supports, followed by transport camels 
and a reserve, with one flank on the river and the other 
in the desert protected by mounted troops. The 
Dervishes, less numerous but more imposing, stood in 
groups outside the town hesitating whether to charge 
home or take to flight. But a nearer view of the 
approaching battalions, moving slowly and steadily in 
disciplined ranks, quickened their decision, and the 
Dervish force retreated southwards without firing a 
shot. There was to be no more fighting in the Dongola 
province, for the riflemen retired round the bends of 
the river three hundred and fifty miles to Abu Hamed, 
whilst the horsemen made across the desert to Metemma 
and Omdurman. The Egyptian army was everywhere 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 169 

received with enthusiasm by the remnant of the local 
population, and agricultural prosperity was restored 
very soon after the occupation. 

In England a mihtary success in the Sudan, after so 
many years of disappointment and failure, was hailed 
with dehght. Colonel Sir Herbert Kitchener was 
promoted a major-general, as were also Colonels Hunter 
and Rundle, a generous hst of promotions and decora- 
tions bestowed fitting rewards on the junior officers 
who had created a fighting force out of unpromising 
material, and the thoughts of the British nation 
turned wistfully to Khartoum and the half-forgotten 
tale of the abandonment of Gordon. 

The news carried to Omdurman by Wad Bishara 
and Osman Azrak created an alarm which can only 
be explained on the hypothesis that these Emirs 
exaggerated the power of the Egyptian army in order 
to make out a case for their loss of a province They 
reported that they had been closely pursued across the 
desert and that the invaders would shortly appear 
before the gates of the capital. The story caused a 
panic m the city whose 300,000 inhabitants had beheved 
the Khahfa to be the supreme ruler of the world and 
business came to a standstill. Hitherto the various 
Dervish armies had been everywhere successful save 
in their failure to invade Egypt-a failure unknoWn to 
the mass of the people. They had repeatedly massacred 
thousands of Egyptian soldiers under the Mahdi • had 
conquered Kordofan, Darfur and the country beyond 
Fashoda: had three times compelled British forces 
to evacuate the Sudan : and had defeated the armies 
of Abyssima led in person by King John, whose head 
was exposed m Omdurman as a trophy of victory 
Now that the Abyssinians had defeated the Italians, 
the Khahfa was arranging an expedition to turn the 



170 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

latter out of Kassala. Thus the capital was wholly 
unprepared for anything in the nature of a reverse, 
and its population was not of a character to bear 
a shock with equanimity, for the inhabitants of 
this peculiar town were in no way indigenous to its 
soil, but had been collected from various districts for 
the glorification of the Baggara and as hostages for 
the behaviour of distant provinces. Whenever the 
Khalifa suspected the loyalty of a tribe — and each was 
in turn suspected — his system was to round up a 
number of its chief famihes and drive them to the 
capital with their portable property, to dwell under 
his eye in a suburb built by themselves and their 
slaves. None could leave Omdurman without his 
permission, under penalty of death. 

In this manner the city grew from the hamlet in 
which the Mahdi first pitched his camp into a huge 
agglomeration of solid houses, covering an immense 
area, each quarter subdivided into sections, tribe by 
tribe — to facilitate control by the central authority. 
As the tribes from time immemorial had been at feud 
with one another, they were unlikely to combine for 
any common purpose, and by playing off one against 
the other and occasionally executing a leader, the 
despot maintained a rough kind of discipline with 
consummate ability. According to his lights the 
Khalifa was undoubtedly a ruler of men, who federated 
a mass of warring elements into a nation and governed 
it without a rival during difficult times. His methods, 
though effective, were deplorable, and his despotism 
proved sterile ; but in future years we perhaps shall 
realise that, in spite of the evil he wrought, he uncon- 
sciously paved the way for the higher standard of 
government which England is now developing on the 
Nile. 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 171 

With characteristic power and an intuitive under- 
standing of the people he addressed, Abdullahi stood up 
in the pulpit of the open mosque square to arrest the 
panic and explain away the news from Dongola. He 
announced that his mighty armies would at once be 
recalled from distant provinces for the defence of the 
city, that the insolent invaders would be lured into the 
heart of the Sudan and wiped off the face of the earth. 
He had seen in a dream the yellow plains of Kerreri 
whitened by their bones. Had not the accursed white 
men once before reached Metemma, only to be driven 
back by the chosen warriors of Mohammed ? Let no 
man doubt him. The intrigues of the discontented 
would be punished with death and the faithful would 
live for ever in God. 

His words were received with a shout of triumph, 
and thus by the mere weight of his personality he 
overawed the timid, encouraged the fanatical and 
restored his own prestige. Moreover he hit upon a plan 
of campaign which was probably the best under the 
circumstances, though other bones than those of his 
enemy were destined to whiten the plains of Kerreri, 
near Omdurman. 

Accordingly he recalled Mahmud and his 14,000 
men from Darfur and sent them to Metemma ; by 
degees he concentrated at the capital various forces 
from outlying districts until his army numbered nearly 
80,000 men, mostly Sudanese blacks commanded by 
Baggara arabs ; he strengthened Abu Hamed and 
Berber by small contingents, and ordered local levies 
to be added to their garrisons ; he commanded Osman 
Digna and his Suakin adherents to concentrate at 
Adarama on the Atbara River. These plans and move- 
ments took several months to carry out and were 
meanwhile duly reported to the Sirdar by the agents 



172 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

of his sleepless intelligence department. Our infantry 
garrisons and gunboats in the newly acquired Dongola 
province were kept alert by frequent rumours of 
impending attacks, and the cavalry and camel-corps 
ceaselessly patrolled the wells of the surrounding 
deserts. During this lull in the operations the rail- 
way was extended to Kerma which it reached in April 
1897, and another line was boldly projected across 
233 miles of desert from Wadi Haifa towards Abu 
Hamed, held by a Dervish garrison under Mohamed-el- 
Zain. 

When the vSirdar, on his own responsibility, deter- 
mined to construct this desert line, he made a decision 
on which the future success or failure of the campaign 
mainly depended, and the reader is invited to study 
the map facing page 238 in order that he may realise 
the nature of the problem and the reasons which in- 
duced Kitchener to adopt a plan which others openly 
condemned. Subsequent events have proved the 
soundness of his judgment, but, at the time, experts 
both at home and on the spot had no hesitation in 
denouncing the desert railway as the scheme of a 
lunatic. As an alternative, they suggested one of 
three lines of advance for the Egj^ptian army, each 
necessitating a railway and each designed to establish 
our force on a navigable reach of the Nile between Abu 
Hamed and Khartoum. Of these the most popular 
and expensive was the line from Suakim to Berber. 
That it would take many years to build in no way 
daunted its ardent advocates, who were doubtless 
thinking more of future dividends than of immediate 
military necessities. Next in importance were those 
who favoured the theory of linking up all the navigable 
reaches of the river by railways round the cataracts, 
and wanted a railway from Merawi to Abu Hamed. 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 173 

The third alternative was a hne from Korti to Metemma 
across the Bayuda desert. But Kitchener considered 
that the advocates of these and other Unes miscalcu- 
lated the essential difficulties of building railways 
within striking distance of an enemy and the time 
required for the work. No railway could be built until 
its proposed terminus was held by an Egyptian garrison 
and its whole length protected by adequate forces. 
Construction trains on a single line cannot carry the 
supplies of an army as well as masses of railway plant ; 
and large forces cannot subsist in deserts on camel 
transport. In fact it was not possible to construct 
the railway without a large force or to advance a large 
force without a railway, and it was because the Sirdar 
understood this simple proposition that he selected a 
line which obviated both difficulties. 

Between Wadi Haifa and Abu Hamed the Nile makes 
an enormous bend and struggles through two long 
series of cataracts. Sir Herbert Kitchener therefore 
decided on a line of advance which would cut across 
this bend, as the string cuts the arc of a bow, and would 
also permit of the main portion of his railway being 
completed at a safe distance from the enemy's raiding 
parties. No defending force would be required to 
guard the Hne ; Abu Hamed, the terminus, was within 
striking distance of the Egyptian army at Merawi and 
withal too distant from the main Dervish posts to be 
quickly reinforced. The opponents of this scheme 
declared that only a madman could propose to supply 
water by train to 2000 plate-layers in mid-desert, and 
that the further the railway advanced, the more 
impossible would the task become. But the problem 
depended on just the kind of calculation in which 
Kitchener excelled. He worked out the figures to his 
own satisfaction, and, in spite of remonstrance, started 



174 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

construction at Wadi Haifa in January 1897^ so as 
to be ready to move at the rise of the Nile. It was a 
daring resolve, daringly carried out and amply justified 
by results. 

Whilst construction was in progress and the Nile 
stood at its lowest, a pause occurred in the prosecution 
of the campaign, and both sides had ample time to 
prepare for the eventual struggle. Meanwhile the 
tribes and numerous tribelets which unfortunately 
dwelt between the opposing armies suffered every 
hardship which Dervish malignity could inflict, and 
the Jaalin Arabs — who boast a descent direct from the 
Prophet Mohamed — were massacred, man, woman 
and child, to the number of 3000, merely because they 
favoured the invaders. This butchery occurred at 
Metemma in July and was the work of Mahmud's 
army, by direct order of the tyrant of Omdurman. 
Similar methods, on a smaller scale, were practised 
by Mohamed-el-Zain, the Baggara chief of Abu 
Hamed, against the dwellers in the cataracts between 
himself and our Merawi garrison, and his horsemen on 
one occasion cut off the rear-guard of an Egyptian 
patrol, wounding the British bimbashi and killing 
fourteen of his men. 

But Mohamed-el-Zain's day of reckoning was at 
hand — for the railway at last reached to within 
100 miles of his post, the Nile was rising in the 
cataracts and the moment for a blow was approaching. 
The task of capturing Abu Hamed was entrusted to 
Major-General Hunter and a brigade of all arms, con- 
sisting of twenty-five picked cavalry scouts, a battery 
of small guns, four battalions of infantry and 13 14 
transport camels — in all 2500 combatants with eighteen 
days' supplies. The little force was inspected by the 
Sirdar on July 28, on the bank of the Nile opposite 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 175 

Merawi and began its forced march the following day, 
under the greatest secrecy.* 

The problem confronting Hunter was to defeat 
Mohamed-el-Zain before he could be reinforced, and 
to hold Abu Hamed against future attacks. The dis- 
tance to be covered was 145 miles through difficult 
and unknown country, and rapidity of movement was 
essential to success. The risk to his detached force 
lay in the possibility that the 700 Dervishes at Abu 
Hamed might be reinforced by others from Berber 
(1200 men) or Metemma (10,000 men) of whom the 
latter, by merely floating down the Nile in boats, could 
reach Abu Hamed ten days after Hunter's departure 
from Merawi. Moreover Hunter's column once 
launched could not be reinforced, owing to the difficulty 
of camel transport by land and the impossibility of 
hauling gunboats up cataracts in the face of an enemy. 
To mislead the Dervishes a strong patrol was despatched 
to Abu Klea wells whence rumours were spread that an 
advance on Metemma was imminent . But a Dervish spy 
had, of course, seen Hunter's column start, and a swift 
camel soon carried the news to the Baggara chiefs. 

There was thus an element of romance and un- 
certainty in the enterprise undertaken by the flying 
column, and as all ranks in Dongola were acquainted 
with the situation and knew that the force was cut 
off from assistance, news of its progress was awaited 
with interest. The men composing it had implicit 
faith in the ability of their general whose rapid 
promotion had been earned in their midst, and bore 
with cheerful fortitude long and trying nights of 
marching and days of broken sleep under a pitiless sun. 
For eight and a half consecutive days the force 
averaged seventeen miles across desolate rock-strewn 

* See map facing page 238. 



176 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

country, by tracks which cut short the bends of the 
Nile in its struggle through the Monasir cataracts. 
As the route had not been reconnoitred this work 
was undertaken by a bimbashi who rode forward 
with the cavalry scouts to select halting-places by 
the river's edge. After leaving the fertile fields of 
Dongola one is struck by the absolute nakedness of the 
Monasir hills. The land possesses not even a thin 
streak of vegetation and, looked at from a height, has 
the appearance of a stormy ocean suddenly petrified 
into solid, red trap-rock and left to bake for centuries 
in the sun — a wilderness of volcanic hillocks, rising in 
rugged ridges hundreds of feet above the river. The 
inhabitants are few, and those few have a bearing as 
sullen as the aspect of their home, to which no man 
travels except his business be v/ar. The Nile alone 
has a smiling surface as it dances along its numerous 
cliannels amidst water-worn boulders. 

To march a column impeded by laden camels night 
after night through such a country required endurance, 
discipline and enthusiasm on the part of all concerned, 
yet so well did the troops respond to the test that their 
rate of marching brought them before Abu Hamed a 
day ahead of the programme. 

By the morning of August 6, Ginnifab, eighteen miles 
from Abu Hamed, was occupied without opposition, 
but news had reached Hunter that Dervish reinforce- 
ments from both Berber and Metemma were on the 
move and might possibly reach Abu Hamed that night. 
Moreover it was discovered that a Monasir Arab had 
accompanied our column from Merawi and had fre- 
quently sent villagers of his tribe to warn Mohamed- 
el-Zain of our approach. Hunter accordingly decided 
to push forward that night to some point within striking 
distance of the town and make a fortified zariba for 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 177 

his impedimenta. Starting before sundown, the force 
marched throughout the night, and at 4 a.m. halted by 
the river a mile and a half from Abu Hamed, whose 
look-out tower was just visible against the starht sky. 
As soon as the weary transport came up a strong 
parapet was constructed of sacks of forage, biscuits, 
camel-saddles and baggage, and manned by half a 
battalion of infantry, two machine guns and all the 
servants, camel-men and followers — under a bimbashi. 

Within this httle fort the mass of camels were 
made to sit down, closely packed, with their forelegs 
lashed to prevent a stampede when firing commenced. 
Having thus secured his supphes and got rid of his 
baggage. Hunter paraded in light order and marched 
out to fight with 2200 men. 

Much valuable time had been consumed by the 
construction of the defensive post, and it was daylight 
by the time we reached the plateau near Abu Hamed. 
Two Dervishes perched on the watch-tower calmly 
surveyed our proceedings. No other inhabitant was 
visible, and the town itself lay tucked along the 
river's bank so close to the steep slope of the over- 
hanging plateau that nothing could be seen of it. A 
couple of circular forts were found empty by the cavalry 
scouts — who, accompanied by three staff officers, rode 
well in advance of the infantry. As they neared the 
watch-tower the two Dervishes sullenly ciimbed down 
and disappeared with calm deliberation from the 
plateau, whose crest lay just beyond. Their place was 
taken by an eager bimbashi, who chmbed to the top 
and obtained a clear view of the town which was so soon 
to be assaulted. It straggled for nearly a mile along 
the Nile, and was silent and apparently deserted as he 
gazed upon its walls and flat roofs. Across the wide 
river lay the green, fertile island of Mograt, whose 

M 



178 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

inhabitants were commencing their morning work — as 
though no disturbing element could interrupt their 
labours. Overhead coveys of sand-grouse chirped in 
alarm, but the Dervishes lay low, silent and invisible. 

As soon as Hunter had considered the reports 
of his staff he deployed the whole force on the 
plateau, facing towards the town and river, but with 
the left thrown slightly back. The loth Sudanese 
under Brevet Major Sidney held the more exposed left 
flank, with the gth Sudanese next them ; the battery 
was in the middle, half the 3rd Egyptians on the right 
of the guns and the nth Sudanese on the extreme right 
with its flank on the river. The infantry brigade was 
commanded by MacDonald. 

At 6.30 A.M. our guns broke silence and under 
cover of their fire the infantry advanced to the crest 
of the plateau, halted, fixed bayonets and awaited 
orders, overlooking the houses. The battery then took 
ground to the right to enfilade the walls. Our shells were 
now bursting in the houses, but still the enemy made 
no sign. Only some affrighted hens cackled in panic on 
the roof-tops. To those unacquainted with Dervish 
tactics the place might seem untenanted. The pause 
enabled officers to examine their objective. Then the 
advance sounded and the force moved down the slope 
and was at once received by an outburst of rifle fire 
from concealed trenches and loopholed houses. This 
was the Dervish surprise on which they had expended 
much cunning. Hunter rode ahead of the advancing 
line amid a hail of bullets, and the men dropped fast, 
especially on the left flank. Here the loth Sudanese, 
in a few moments, had their commanding officer and a 
bimbashi shot dead and a number of men killed and 
wounded. The fire at short range was so galling to our 
infantry on the exposed slope that Hunter resolved to 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 179 

rush the place and bring the matter to an immediate 
issue. He accordingly directed the maxims to en- 
filade the enemy's firing line and then sounded the 
advance and the double. Exasperated at the loss 
of their beloved officers and eager, as always, for 
a hand-to-hand fight, the blacks rushed down-hill 
upon the trenches, regardless of the hot fire which 
thinned their ranks, and bayoneted or shot every 
Baggara who stood to his post. Passing over their 
bodies, they stormed the walls, swarmed into the town 
and dispersed through its narrow streets and alleys, 
clearing the enemy out of houses and courtyards as they 
proceeded. By 7.30 the place was in our possession, 
after an hour's warm work. But a few desperate men 
still held out, killing all who approached them and 
refusing on any condition to surrender. In one house 
nine such fanatics defended themselves till the afternoon 
and were only quieted by having the building blown 
to pieces by shells at close range. 

The Egyptian casualties were two British officers 
killed — Major Sidney and Lieutenant FitzClarence — 
and 24 men killed and 64 wounded, of whom 21 died 
in the night. Among the Dervish garrison the loss was 
heavier, as must generally happen with the beaten side. 
Over 400 were either killed or too severely wounded to 
escape, and 152 unwounded prisoners were captured, 
including Mohamed-el-Zain and other chiefs. The 
Baggara horse and remnants of the riflemen fled to- 
wards Berber along the Nile and, meeting reinforce- 
ments some twenty miles from the scene of action, 
spread news of the disaster and arrested the advance of 
their friends. At Abu Hamed the local tribesmen who 
had fought for our enemy swam the river under a hail 
of bullets, and dispersed themselves discreetly amongst 
the peaceful inhabitants of Mograt island. Mean- 



i8o SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

while our Infantry, tired by perpetual night marching, 
was not required to pursue — because it would have been 
detrimental to the Sirdar's plan of campaign to send 
detachments beyond Abu Hamed before the railway 
reached it. Hunter, therefore, established his out- 
posts along a ridge of hills to the south, brought up 
his supplies from their temporary zariba, quartered 
his battalions in the larger houses of the town, gave 
them six hours in which to work off arrears of sleep 
and proceeded to fortify and entrench against attack 
from the south. 

Next day all the empty camels and mules were 
despatched to the base near Merawi for further provi- 
sions, together with the Dervish prisoners and our 
sick and wounded — for the problem of feeding the Abu 
Hamed brigade taxed the Sirdar's slender resources 
to the utmost. From Korosko in Egypt, from Rail- 
head in mid-desert, from the Dongola Province, strings 
of laden camels were directed on Abu Hamed, each 
animal bearing its maximum load of 360 lb., of which 
half consisted of the forage it would consume on the 
journey. Thus each camel which survived the long 
marches deposited one i8o-lb. sack of food-stuff at Abu 
Hamed, as a contribution towards the total of 15,000 
lb. of grain required by Hunter's column every day. 
And the reader will perceive, through a simple calcula- 
tion, how difficult it was to ration one brigade by 
camel-transport even when it was not raided, and 
how impossible would have been the task of supplying 
several brigades across the southern deserts, where 
convoys would certainly have been ambushed by 
mounted Dervishes. 

The news of Hunter's victory was conveyed by 
swift riders to the Sirdar ; railway construction was 
energetically resumed in mid-desert ; the laden camels 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK i8i 

started on their weary journeys ; and the gunboats 
and saiUng-boats forthwith commenced to ascend the 
forbidding cataracts which had never before been 
surmounted by such craft. Whilst bustle and stren- 
uous work were the order of the day along two busy 
lines of communication, the scene of interest was 
moving from the Dongola to the Berber Province, 
the base of operations was shifting from Merawi to Wadi 
Haifa, and Dongola was henceforward relegated to a 
mere siding on the lines of communication. 

The step forward to Abu Hamed, timed as it was 
to coincide with the Nile's full flood, ought to have 
been followed by a halt in the operations — whilst the 
railway and the cataracts received attention. But 
events moved too fast for a policy of calculated pro- 
gression, and Kitchener was compelled to occupy 
the town of Berber and hold 150 additional miles 
of the Nile, within a month of the battle of Abu 
Hamed and many months before he was prepared for 
such a responsibility. War has its surprises in the 
Sudan as elsewhere. The Dongola campaign of 1896, 
starting at a moment's notice and without forethought, 
surprised us with its floods of rain and epidemic of 
cholera ; but the Berber campaign of 1897 — undertaken 
with studied care and a determined preference for 
caution — astonished us by the dangerous rapidity of 
its success. 

As soon as Hunter had prepared Abu Hamed for 
defence, he sent forward a contingent of friendly 
Ababda Arabs on camels, to reconnoitre and report. 
They proceeded through a disturbed country, spread- 
ing rumours that they were merely the advanced- 
guard of an immense force. Under ordinary cir- 
cumstances the falseness of such reports would have 
been discovered by the enemy and the Arabs would 



i82 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

have been promptly ambushed and killed. But Zaki 
Osman, the Dervish Emir, incensed because neither 
the Khalifa nor Mahmud would send him sub- 
stantial reinforcements, abandoned Berber in dis- 
gust, and marched away south, leaving chaos and 
consternation amongst the tribes of the place. Our 
Arabs met one Dervish patrol which they defeated ; 
then marched on boldly to the city, and took formal 
possession of its grain-store in the name of the Sirdar. 
Abu Hamed had been captured on August 7. On 
September 2, Hunter telegraphed to Kitchener the 
astonishing news that Berber also had fallen ; was he 
to occupy it or not ? 

Rarely in Lord Kitchener's eventful Hfe has he been 
asked a question more difficult to answer or one re- 
quiring a more immediate and definite reply. 

At that date Berber and the mouth of the Atbara 
constituted the most important strategic position in 
the Sudan — distant only seventy-five miles from 
Metemma and Mahmud's powerful army. To occupy 
and hold it in strength was therefore the most desirable 
of all military events. But to occupy it with a weak 
force, dependent upon insecure communications, meant 
surrendering the initiative of the whole campaign to 
the enemy, and none knew better than Kitchener the 
value of retaining in his own hands the power of 
the initiative — the secret of military success. If the 
Khalifa, or Mahmud or even Osman Digna (who, with 
2000 men, occupied Adarama on the Atbara, should 
elect to attack Berber with vigour or cut it off from 
the north, the chances of holding it would be small, 
and the campaign would assume very unpleasant 
proportions. During twelve hours Kitchener weighed 
all the consequences, decided in favour of the bolder 
course, telegraphed Hunter to occupy Berber and 



THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AT WORK 183 

himself rode there direct from Merawi to Berber with a 
small escort by the shortest route— 170 miles across 
the Bayuda Desert. 

Meanwhile Hunter at Abu Hamed lost no time— 
for a game of bluff, to be successful, must be played 
without hesitation. He put 350 men of the 9th 
Sudanese on the four available gunboats and disem- 
barked them at Berber in two days' time. He then 
sent on the gunboats to shell and harass Zaki Osman's 
retiring force, and to create a general impression of our 
strength amongst the riparian tribes as far as Metemma. 
These measures had the effect of gaining time, just 
when time was of infinite value to the Egyptian army, 
scattered along a front of 300 miles from Dongola 
to Berber. 

If during September, October or November 
Mahmud's Dervishes had attacked in force they would 
certainly have captured Berber and would probably 
have annihilated its weak garrison. But the Khalifa 
who was essentially a civihan, obstinately refused to 
permit Mahmud to attack. He remained convinced that 
the Sirdar and his infidel band would advance against 
Omdurman before the Nile fell, and was determined 
to concentrate and husband the whole of his strength 
in order to deal it a crushing blow near his city 
walls. He therefore ordered Osman Digna back to 
Shendi and redoubled his efforts to increase the Omdur- 
man army by new levies. He collected stores of grain 
from distant provinces, built forts and additional walls 
round the city and rejected the advice of the fighting 
Emirs who counselled a pohcy of attack. He thus 
failed to profit by the initiative which had been tem- 
porarily surrendered to him and the golden oppor- 
tunity was lost. 

By January 1898, Berber and the Atbara fort were 



i84 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

sufficiently garrisoned to withstand a siege ; the road 
from Suakin was open ; the Eastern Sudan — reheved 
from the disturbing influence of Osman Digna — was 
incHned for peace ; the railway, completed to Abu 
Hamcd, was steadily advancing towards the Atbara ; 
an Egyptian garrison had relieved the Italian force 
at Kassala and was in touch with the Abyssinian 
frontier ; our flotilla of gunboats patrolled the Nile 
to the Shabluka cataract, occasionally engaging the 
Metemma forts and keeping an ever-watchful eye upon 
Mahmud's army. 

Thus far the reconquest of the Sudan had been 
accomplished by Egypt and her reorganised army, 
unaided by British troops.* Under the guidance of 
Kitchener and his officers, amongst whom Vandeleur 
was a bimbashi in the gth Sudanese, much had been 
done ; but it was obvious to all concerned that the 
Khalifa's policy of concentration at Omdurman would 
compel England to despatch reinforcements for the 
final overthrow of the great Dervish army : and the 
question which engaged our thoughts was, would the 
British troops be placed under the Sirdar's command ? 
or would he and his army fight under a senior general 
from Pall Mall ? 

* The British battalion which marched to Hafir and Dongola had 
immediately returned to Egypt. 



A SOLDIKK ()!• Ill !•: wru SI PAN ICSK 



CHAPTER VIII 

ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898. 

See maps facing pages 208 and 238 

The following table shows the distribution of the troops 
in December 1897 and January 1898 and illustrates 
the facility for concentration conferred by the Desert 
Railway, without which this campaign could not have 
taken place. 



Place. 



December 1897. 



January 1898. 



Fort 
Atbara 






Berber 



i Battalion Infantry i Squadron Cavalry (Bimbashi Le 
4 Gunboats Gallais) 

2 Companies Camel Corps (Bim- 
bashi King) 

2nd Battery Artillery (Bimbashi 
Peak) 

3rd Egyptian BattaUon (Sillem 
Bey) 

4th Egyptian BattaUon (Sparks 
Bey) 

7 th Egyptian Battalion (Fathy 
Bey) 

15th Egyptian Battalion (Hick- 
man Bey) 
4 Gunboats (Commander Keppel) 

2 Companies Camel 2 Squadrons Cavalry (Broadwood 

Corps Bey) 

I Battery Artillery 4th Battery Artillery (Bimbashi 

Lawrie) 
Sth Battery Artillery (Bimbashi de 

Rougemont) 
IXth Sudanese Battalion (Walter 

Bey) 
Xth Sudanese BattaUon (Nason 
Bey) 



4^ Battalions Infan 

try 
I Gunboat 



i86 



SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 



Place. 



December 1897. 



Berber \ 
{Cont.) 



Suakin 



Detachment Garrison 

Artillery 
I Company Camel 

Corps 
2\ Battalions Infantry 

Nil 



January 1898. 

Xlth Sudanese Battalion (Jackson 

Bey) 
Xllth Sudanese Battalion (Town- 

shend Bey) 
Xlllth Sudanese Battalion (Collin- 

son Bey) 
XlVth Sudanese Battalion (Shekle- 

ton Bey) 
I Gunboat 

Half 5th Egyptian Battalion (a 
native officer) 



Kassala 



3i Battalions Infantry 



Between 
Berber 

and Abu 
Hamed 



Railhead 

at Dekeish 
(20 miles 
South of " 

Abu 
Hamed) 



Nil 



Wadi 
Haifa 



{■ 



Battalion Infantry 



Dongola 
Province 



8 Squadrons Cavalry 

5 Companies Camel 
Corps 

3 Batteries Artillery 

6 Battalions Infantry 
Detachments Garrison 

Artillery 
3 Gunboats 



I Company Camel Corps (native 
officer) 

1 6th Egyptian Battalion (Nichol- 
son Bey) 

Arab Battalion (lately Italian) 

ist Egyptian Battalion (Heygate 

Bey) 
2nd Egyptian Battalion (Pink Bey) 
Half 5th Egyptian Battahon (Bor- 

han Bey) 
8th Egyptian Battahon (Kalussi 

Bey) 

Advance parties of Royal War- 
wickshire, Lincolnshire, and 
Cameron Highlanders, under 
Major Simpson 

I Battery Egyptian Horse Artil- 
lery (Bimbashi Young) 

4 Squadrons Egyptian Cavalry 
(Bimbashi Mahon) 

1 8th Egyptian Battalion (Matchett 
Bey) 

I Squadron Cavalry (depot) 

5 Companies Camel Corps (Tud- 
way Bey) 

3rd Battery Artillery (Bimbashi 
Stewart) 

6th Egyptian Battalion (a native 
Bey) 

17th Egyptian Battalion (Bun- 
bury Bey) 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 



187 



Place. 


December 1897. 


January 1898. 


Dongola 
Province " 




Detachments Garrison Artillery 

(Egyptian) 
3 Gunboats 




' Nil 


ist Batt. Royal Warwickshire 
Regiment (Lieut. -Col. Quayle 


Between 




Jones) 


Railhead - 




ist Batt. Lincolnshire Regiment 


andCairo 




(Colonel Verner) 
ist Batt. Cameron Highlanders 




h 


(Colonel Money) 




r ist Battery Egyptian 


2 ist Lancers (Colonel Martin) 




Horse Artillery 


5th Fusihers (from Gibraltar) 




2 Battalions Egyptian 


20th Lancashire Fusihers (from 




Infantry (being 


Quetta) 




raised) 


87th Royal Irish Fusiliers (from 


Cairo • 


3 Battalions British 


Burmah) 




Infantry 


ist Batt. Seaforth Highlanders 




I Regiment British 


(from Malta) 




Cavalry 


32nd Battery R.F.A. 




I Battery R.F.A. 





Whilst the thoughts of those who interest themselves 
in the continued progress of the British Empire were 
directed towards Omdurman, its Dervish army and 
Kitchener's scattered garrisons ; and whilst the Military 
Clubs in London were still busily speculating on the 
name of the particular general who might command in 
the field, reports were reaching the Sirdar that the 
Khalifa was on the move. He had marshalled his 
host outside the walls of his city and was marching 
north in great strength — determined to attack us in 
Berber. This information came through such reliable 
channels that it could not be disbelieved, however 
unlikely it might seem, and in fact the Dervish army 
did set forth from Omdurman one day in January 
under the personal command of the Khalifa. Kitchener 
at once concentrated the Egyptian army in the Berber 
Province, by moving the Dongola garrisons back to 
Wadi Haifa and forward to Abu Hamed by train, as 



i88 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

shown in the table above. He telegraphed to Lord 
Cromer for the loan of one brigade of British infantry 
as reinforcement, and ordered an entrenched camp to 
be constructed at the gunboat depot near the mouth of 
the Atbara River. These necessary precautions were 
most inconvenient both to the engineer subalterns 
engaged on railway construction and to the inadequate 
camel-transport, employed at several small cataracts 
which made their unwelcome appearance between Abu 
Hamed and Berber as the Nile fell. 

Meanwhile the Khalifa's march northwards came 
to a halt. Difficulties of transport and of food-supply 
confronted him at the outset. Neither he nor any 
other man can improvise supply and transport services 
at a moment's notice. Moreover, he began to perceive 
that he was not quite soldier enough to conduct a great 
military enterprise to success. He therefore hesitated, 
called together a council of war, mistrusted its advice 
but yet feared to delegate to any of the fighting Emirs 
the command of his precious troops. Finally he moved 
the army back to Omdurman and ordered Mahmud's 
division to attack Berber from Metemma. Now, if 
this decision had been arrived at and acted upon 
between September and January it might have 
resulted in a Dervish victory. But in February — 
owing to the power of rapid concentration possessed 
by the Egyptians through their growing railway — the 
Khalifa's belated order to Mahmud merely courted an 
unnecessary defeat and illustrated the danger of en- 
trusting military policy to a ruler however capable, 
devoid of military instinct. Our own British history 
abounds in similar misfortunes. For several months, 
Mahmud who was gifted with a soldier's eye had implored 
the Khalifa to let him attack Berber whilst its garrison 
was still weak, but his appeal was merely snubbed and 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 189 

refused. Now that Berber was stronger he received 
suppUes of ammunition and the order to attack. He 
accordingly crossed the Nile with 15,000 fighting men, 
joined Osman Digna's contingent at Shendi, and opened 
the stirring campaign whicli tested Kitchener's capa- 
city as a general and the quaUty of the Egyptian army, 
as they had not been tested before. Although one 
brigade of British infantry joined in the fray, it was 
wisely decided not to supersede Kitchener or in any 
way interfere with his unfettered conduct of the opera- 
tions. The British infantry was therefore placed 
entirely under his command as soon as its various 
units passed southwards of Assouan. Thus for the 
first time in our recent history — so far as my knowledge 
goes — a British general, selected for proved efficiency, 
commanded an army which, excepting the British 
brigade, he had had ample time and opportunity to 
equip, organise and train, in respect of every detail — 
including finance, stores, enlistments, arms, clothing, 
ammunition, promotion of officers and selection of 
staffs — with a result which justified the experiment 
and may lead to its future adoption, even in India. 

It is, however, instructive to note that this general 
was technically the servant of the Khedive of Egypt 
who paid him, and that, even when he commanded 
auxiliary British troops, he remained in foreign employ 
and fought under a foreign flag. He received his 
orders, not from the War Office, but from Lord Cromer, 
and thus enjoyed a position of freedom for his military 
arrangements and of personal responsibility for their 
success, which has rarely been conferred on a Com- 
mander-in-Chief in the field. 

When, on the present occasion, the boots of the 
British infantry proved unserviceable and its ammni- 
tion defective, observers recognised the working of that 



190 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

time-honoured procedure which deprives individuals 
of responsibihty and shifts the blame for defects from 
one departmental office to another. During the years 
which intervened between Waterloo and Colenso, we 
perfected in peace a system of minimising a com- 
mander's power and, by means of elaborate regulations, 
promoted the art of evading personal censure into 
an exact science. If the boots or ammunition of an 
Egyptian brigade had been faulty, somebody would 
certainly have been *' hanged " for neglect. But 
England's unfortunate habit of hurriedly assembling 
battalions, and sending them forth to fight her 
battles — under a general who is a complete stranger 
to them and a scratch staff appointed for the occasion 
— makes efficient supervision impossible. Yet, if the 
British brigade which fought on the Atbara had been 
trained for only one month in Egypt under its own 
brigadier, minor defects would have been remedied 
before instead of after the commencement of hostilities, 
and the force would have started as an organised unit 
instead of a heterogeneous assemblage of battalions. 
But, instead of fairly facing any military problem and 
acting with average foresight, we prefer to muddle 
through somehow, trusting to luck to give us a general 
who will get us out of the difficulties into which we 
drift. In this instance we were fortunate enough to 
pitch on Kitchener and may take credit for sticking to 
him when found. 

Let us then return to Berber where the units were 
gathering for the campaign which their general had 
long foreseen, and for which he had trained a foreign 
army, at the expense of a foreign State. 

The three weeks' operations upon which we now 
enter present a striking example of what is called 
offensive-defensive tactics. To understand this clearly 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 191 

we should realise the objects which Kitchener and 
Mahmud each desired to attain, and we can then appre- 
ciate the logical sequence of the separate events and 
not merely dwell upon marches and reconnaissances as 
exciting incidents and view the battle as a purposeless 
slaughter on an accidental field. 

The audacity of Hunter's first occupation of Berber 
with a mere handful of men was discussed in a previous 
chapter, and the hazard which was then dehberately 
courted can be measured by the effort now made to 
defeat Mahmud' s attack— an effort which would cer- 
tainly have overstrained our force, if the Khahfa had 
launched his full strength upon the enterprise. For 
the battle of the Atbara was fought solely in defence 
of Berber, to ward off Mahmud's unsupported attack, 
and it would never have been fought at all, but for 
the Emir's determination to throw himself into the 
city in a headlong rush. For he calculated that his 
adversary would wait for him in Berber and try to 
hold it by passive defence. To sit down behind 
entrenchments and utilise the labour of thousands of 
soldiers to strengthen a position into a so-called 
"impregnable "stronghold offers a temptation which 
few commanders resist. Yet, in spite of the high 
proficiency which military engineering has attained, 
the misuse of fortification has probably caused more 
disasters than any other accepted theory of war, 
because generals are not all gifted with the trained 
imagination which alone can tell them when to trust 
to mobility and where to discard spade-work. Thus 
Mahmud and his Emirs argued quite reasonably that 
they would close on Berber and discover some way of 
breaking into it, and that, even if they failed to do 
this, they would certainly succeed in destroying the 
railway which supphed its garrison. In fact their plan 



192 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

of campaign, though undertaken too late, was not a 
stupid one, and might have led to success even at the 
eleventh hour — on the assumption that Kitchener 
would defend Berber at Berber itself. 

But, unluckily for Mahmud, the Sirdar adopted a 
different plan of defence to that which was expected 
of him. He marched his whole force — except one 
Egyptian battalion — out of the town as soon as the 
gunboats reported that the Dervishes were moving in 
earnest. Representatives of the merchants and the 
civil population remonstrated and entreated in vain. 
Those who were loyal were served out with rifles and 
ammunition to protect their property from the disloyal, 
and the army remained free and mobile, unhampered 
by passive defence or the civilian pressure which some- 
times mars a campaign. 

By the middle of March Kitchener had concen- 
trated his force at the village of Kunur on the right 
bank of the Nile, some five miles from the mouth of the 
Atbara and eighteen miles south of Berber. Mahmud 
on the same date was moving northwards from Shendi 
to Aliab along the same bank of the river, and the 
head of his marching column was distant some fifty 
miles from Kitchener's camp. The position of these 
places, whose inhabitants had fled from Dervish raids 
and massacre, can be seen on the map on page 238, 
and it is also important to notice the peculiar course 
of the Atbara — whose bed at low water presented a 
waste of sand-banks studded by deep pools — enclosed 
within a wide belt of palm-trees and impenetrable 
thorn thickets. The surrounding country, irrigated 
and fertile when the Atbara rises in flood, was in 
March a mere desert across which sand-storms and 
wind-devils swept, beneath a brazen sun. Yet the 
nights were cool and the climate healthy, owing 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 193 

to the pure dry breezes which blew from the 
north. 

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN ARMY DURING THE ATBARA 

OPERATIONS 

Concentrated at Kunur and Fort Atbara on March i6, 1898. 

Sirdar. — (Commander-in-Chief) Major-General Sir Herbert Kitchener. 

Cavalry — Lieut. -Colonel Broad wood. 
Eight Egyptian squadrons and four Egyptian maxim guns 
(horsed). One Battery Egyptian Horse Artillery. 

Camel-Corps. — -Major Tudway. 
Six companies (Egyptian and Sudanese). 

Artillery. — Lieut. -Colonel Long. 
Three Egyptian Batteries, small guns carried on pack mules. 
Six maxim guns (British gun detachments). 
One Naval Rocket Detachment. 

Transport Corps (Camels) — Lieut. -Colonel Walter Kitchener. 
Infantry (Except British Brigade). — Major-Gcneral Hunter. 

Bvitish Brigade. — Major-General Gatacre. ist Battalion Royal 
Warwickshire Regiment (less two companies at Dongola). 
ist Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, ist Battalion Seaforth 
Highlanders, ist Battalion Cameron Highlanders. Field 
Hospital. 

MacDonald's Brigade. — Lieut. -Colonel Hector MacDonald. 2nd 
Egyptian Battalion, 9th Sudanese Battalion, loth Sudanese 
Battahon, nth Sudanese Battalion. Field Hospital. 

Maxwell's Brigade. — Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell. 8th Egyptian Bat- 
talion, 12th Sudanese Battalion. 13th Sudanese Battalion, 
15th Sudanese Battalion. Field Hospital. 

Lewis's Brigade. — Lieut.-Colonel Lewis. 3rd Egyptian Battalion, 
4th Egyptian Battalion, 7th Egyptian Battalion, 1 5th Egyptian 
Battalion. Field Hospital. 

Gunboats. — Commander Colin Keppel, R.N. 
Four Gunboats, patrolling the Nile. 

Total Strength = 12,000 combatants. 

Of the above, Lewis's Brigade was at Fort Atbara, the 
remainder at Kunur — the whole in readiness to move 

N 



194 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

at a moment's notice, waiting only for Mahmud's in- 
tentions to be translated into action. 

With the exception of two officers attached to the 
headquarter stafi and the usual staff of a British 
brigade, the whole of the staff-work was performed by 
officers of the Egyptian army — mostly bimbashis under 
thirty years of age. The supply, transport, and in- 
telligence departments were also found by the Egyp- 
tian army. 

The advantage of Kunur as a point of concentra- 
tion will be apparent after a glance at the map on 
page 238. If Mahmud elected to cross the fordable 
Atbara near its mouth and attack the fort at the con- 
fluence. Kitchener could make a five-mile march from 
Kunur and fall on the Dervish fliank, whilst Lewis's 
brigade engaged it in front ; should Mahmud evade 
the fort and attempt to cross the Atbara at Hudi, 
twenty-five miles from Berber, Kitchener could fore- 
stall him by a ten-mile march to the same place ; 
while, should Mahmud cross the Atbara at a point 
higher up and then make for Berber, Kitchener could 
keep him moving in the desert and attack him from a 
base on the Nile. Thus Kunur secured to Kitchener 
what is technically termed the interior line and relegated 
Mahmud to the longer, exterior line of operation. 

Having disposed the army in a good strategic 
situation, early and accurate news of the march of the 
Dervishes from Aliab was of paramount importance, 
and right well was the Sirdar served by the gunboats on 
the Nile and the cavalry watching the line of the 
Atbara. The initiative still lay with Mahmud, and 
the camp at Kunur buzzed with conflicting rumour 
and amateur strategy — both in the English and Arabic 
languages. The only man who never gave out his 
views was the silent Sirdar. But every day he practised 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 195 

the brigades in the special formations required for 
desert warfare, and so a week passed in useful prepara- 
tion and high expectation on the part of the troops. 
On Saturday March 19, Mahmud's army began to 
move inland from Aliab towards Hudi with the 
intention of carrying out the second alternative 
suggested above. But Kitchener promptly fore- 
stalled his adversary by sending the cavalry to Hudi 
the same day, following it up on Sunday with the 
remainder of the army. The British brigade was at 
Divine Service in the open air when the order to march 
arrived. That evening the Kunur force joined Lewis's 
brigade at Hudi, and thus occupied the very place 
which Mahmud had selected for his own camp on the 
same date. One battalion remained in Fort Atbara 
to safeguard the base. Mobility, aided by early and 
accurate information, had already won a victory at a 
cost of fifteen cavalry casualties, and Mahmud's 
advance-guard was obliged to deflect its movement 
to the east. His whole force arrived that night at 
Nakheila after a magnificent forty-mile march across 
the desert — a fine example of Dervish endurance and 
discipline — though at Nakheila it was no nearer to 
Berber than it had been at Aliab. 

Next morning Kitchener pushed his advantage by 
moving the Anglo-Egyptian camp to Ras-el-Hudi six 
miles further up the river, where it makes a bend in its 
course. Here he guarded the lower course of the Atbara 
and his own communications, he remained on or near 
the line of any Dervish advance on Berber, he length- 
ened that line by keeping the enemy well up-stream, 
and at the same time he interposed his concentrated 
force between Mahmud and his objective. Meanwhile 
the infantry halted, whilst the mounted troops en- 
deavoured to clear up the situation by reconnaissance, 



196 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

So far, in the preliminary moves for position, 
Kitchener had outmanoeuvred his opponent and 
shouldered him away from Berber, but the menace still 
threatened. Mahmud's hardy warriors might yet 
achieve success. 

In a previous chapter a favourable opinion was 
expressed regarding the Khalifa's wisdom in concen- 
trating his strength at Omdurman when his Dongola 
garrisons were routed in 1896, as it would then have 
been futile to attempt the reconquest of the northern 
province. But a policy of concentration, to be 
effective, must include a determination to strike decisive 
blows when favourable opportunity may offer. Yet 
we saw how the Khalifa forgot this elementary truth 
when the Egyptian advanced-guard reached Berber in 
1897. One or two blunders may, however, be for- 
given to any statesman or soldier who profits by 
realising his own mistakes. But the Khalifa learned 
nothing by experience. On the Atbara he launched 
Mahmud against Berber but obstinately refused to 
support the enterprise with reserve troops — just when 
a reserve was obviously indispensable. The mere 
presence of 10,000 Dervishes at Aliab — after Mahmud 
reached Nakheila — would have greatly facilitated this 
Emir's task by endangering Kitchener's communica- 
tions between Fort Atbara and Ras-el-Hudi. Indeed 
it is doubtful whether Kitchener could have main- 
tained his position if a substantial Dervish body had 
threatened him from Aliab, and this view is strengthened 
by the fact that on March 26, the Sirdar sent a batta- 
lion, a battery and three gunboats to raid and recon- 
noitre the Dervish communications with Omdurman. 
This expedition landed south of Shendi, attacked 
Mahmud's depot, captured its supplies and returned 
to report that no reinforcements were moving north- 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 197 

wards from Omdurman. The information was to be 
of great value to Kitchener, as it permitted him to deal 
with Mahmud single-handed at his own time, and 
enabled him to put his full force into the fighting line 
whenever he should decide to strike a blow. Even the 
astute and experienced Osman Digna, who had often 
bested disciplined white troops around Suakin, could 
now offer Mahmud neither hope of evading the Sirdar 
nor prospect of attacking him at an advantage. In 
fact the initiative was slipping from Mahmud's hands 
into Kitchener's, and the rest of the story discloses 
how the latter made use of this power and how the 
Dervish army met its fate at Nakheila — officially 
named the Battle of Atbara. 

The mere presence of the Anglo-Egyptian force at 
Ras-el-Hudi — instead of at Berber — was a sore puzzle 
to Mahmud. It upset his plans, and left him with the 
choice between an immediate attack or an ignominious 
retreat. He chose neither, and thereby surrendered 
the initiative completely. But he arranged to conceal 
his army in a cunning defensive position in the thickets 
near Nakheila, whilst the arch-marauder Osman Digna 
went to recover certain valuable grain stores, which he 
had secreted in the desert on leaving Adarama. Thus 
the opposing armies sat down within twenty miles of 
one another, waiting, watching and uncertain — until 
Kitchener should make up his mind how he would deal 
with Mahmud. But before he could settle this, he 
had to discover Mahmud's exact position, and the task 
of locating it devolved on the Egyptian cavalry. It 
numbered only 800 troopers. The Arab horse were 
some 3000 men. They were now to be pitted against 
one another during a fortnight of incessant recon- 
naissance. 

Every day at dawn some of Broadwood's squadrons 



198 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

rode forth to reconnoitre and skirmish towards Nak- 
heila — in the scrub, over miles of untUilating desert, 
on stony ground, or across dry khors fissured and 
cracked by the action of the sun on a wet surface. It 
was not an easy country for cavah-y. The wide belt 
of mimosa-trees and dom -palms by the river was fresh 
and green and beautiful to behold owing to the rich 
alluvial soil deposited by the annual flood. Brilliant 
parrots and other bright birds flitted amongst the 
trees. The stagnant pools in the river-bed were 
crowded with crocodiles and big fish waiting patiently 
for the flood. Dainty gazelles hurried across the open 
desert, disturbed by the opposing horsemen or scared 
by the sharp crack of rifle fire in a silent landscape. 
But it was a period of anxious work for the bimbashis 
of cavalry, commanding Fellaheen troopers endowed 
with no natural aptitude for either riding or raiding, in 
conflict with Baggara Arabs who were experts at both. 
Every day the patrols encountered superior numbers of 
the enemy, lost men and horses, gained confidence in 
themselves, procured knowledge of the strange country 
and returned at nightfall — dogged back to their camp 
by an enemy with whom they had fought rear-guard 
actions all the afternoon. 

Yet the main Dervish position had not been dis- 
covered at the end of ten such weary days and Mahmud 
still made no sign of moving. A single Egyptian 
squadron could by no means pierce the Arab cordon 
and the state of uncertainty threatened to be pro- 
longed. The Sirdar, therefore, decided to risk his whole 
mounted force on a decisive reconnaissance, in order 
to break through the Arab horse and examine the 
Dervish stronghold at close quarters. He entrusted 
Broadwood with the enterprise, and sent Hunter and 
some staff ofliccrs — unhampered by the cares of 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 199 

executive command — to examine and report on the 
enemy's position. A deserter from Mahmud was 
impressed as guide, and the following units marched 
from Ras-el-Hudi very early on March 30 — eight 
squadrons cavalry, one battery horse-artillery, four 
galloping maxims and a brigade of infantry. 

As the day's outing might involve an engagement 
and would certainly necessitate a forty- to fifty-mile 
march, the supporting infantry proceeded a portion of 
the distance to await developments in a defensive 
position. The mounted troops trotted continuously 
forward, brushed aside several strong bodies of Baggaras, 
and—piloted by their Dervish guide— made straight 
for Mahmud's hidden position. The very boldness of 
this manoeuvre, the sudden appearance of a compact 
force in their midst disconcerted the Dervishes. They 
apprehended that their defences would be instan- 
taneously assaulted and stood by to defend them with 
strict orders to hold their fire for close ranges. As the 
only object of the reconnaissance was to see clearly 
not fight, a near view was essential. Accordingly, the 
horse artillery and maxims opened at 1000 yards on 
the blurred line — dancing in a mirage — which repre- 
sented the enemy's camp, in the hope of attracting 
attention and inducing the Dervishes to show them- 
selves. Meanwhile Hunter and four staff officers rode 
towards the place and actually got within 300 yards 
of it before they realised what it was. Then as they 
topped a slope the waving hues resolved themselves 
into zaribas, pahsades and trenches at least a mile in 
length, one behind the other, enclosing an immense 
area, swarming with Dervishes. It was a sight which 
these adventurous ofhcers will never forget. They 
had accomphshed in a few moments the whole object 
of their enterprise and at once rode back to the guns 



200 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

and attendant squadrons. The force then withdrew 
to its infantry support as rapidly as it had come — 
followed by the enemy for ten miles, but never 
seriously engaged. It was a smart piece of work, and 
the news that Mahmud's stronghold had at last been 
seen was satisfactory alike to the Sirdar and all ranks 
of the army. 

A few days later the camp was moved to Abadar 
six miles nearer the enemy and on April 5, the mounted 
troops again undertook a similar reconnaissance, 
supported by the 9th Sudanese (Vandeleur being with 
it) and the loth Sudanese — in order to further investi- 
gate the best method of arranging our infantry assault. 
Hunter, Maxwell, and Long — the latter officer deputed 
to select artillery positions — accompanied Broadwood, 
in order to familiarise themselves with the approaches 
to the place and advise as to the best plan of attacking 
it. But, on approaching to within 1200 yards, Broad- 
wood perceived that a reception very different from 
the last awaited his second reconnaissance. Directly 
his leading squadrons had crossed the front of the 
zariba to "make good" the ground beyond, a cloud of 
Baggara horsemen, superior in numbers to the Egyptian 
force, emerged from the south end of the camp and 
trotted through the scrub towards the desert. Our 
squadrons and guns in compact order moved on at a 
walk until the force was concentrated opposite the zariba 
which lay 1000 yards to the right flank, and, mean- 
while, the officers watched the continuous extension of 
these hostile horsemen who evidently aimed at envelop- 
ing the Egyptian front and left flank. Next it was 
noticed that another considerable body of Arab horse 
were issuing from the northern end of the camp and 
threatened to cut off the Egyptian retreat. The long, 
flat-bladed spears glinting in the morning sun and the 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 201 

dust raised by so many bodies of cantering horsemen 
plainly disclosed the intention of the enemy to surround 
our diminutive force. Meanwhile the palisades and 
entrenchments of the position literally swarmed with 
Dervish spectators watching the progress of events, 
and their guns, concealed in a dozen emplacements, 
opened fire with loud reports and puffs of white smoke 
owing to their use of black powder. Evidently the 
situation though picturesque bore a serious aspect and 
would require cool and judicious handling. Broad- 
wood decided to deal with one phase at a time, avoided 
dispersing his force and relied on the discipline and 
training of his squadrons to counter-balance the vastly 
superior numbers of the enemy. 

The battery opened fire at 1800 yards on the 
Baggaras extending in front, the horse-artillery and 
maxims coming quickly into action with damaging 
effect. Broadwood next detached two squadrons 
under Major Le Gallais to deal with the Dervishes 
who menaced his right flank and rear, and two other 
squadrons under Captain Hon. E. Baring to protect 
his left. With the four remaining squadrons and the 
guns he moved cautiously forward — suspicious as 
always of Dervish ambuscades — towards the horse- 
men whom his guns had driven south. But, suddenly, 
the move forward was brought to a standstill by a 
solid line of dismounted spearmen, who rose out of a 
concealed khor between the guns and the distant 
horsemen and confronted Broadwood at 300 yards. 
This was the ambush. In well-ordered array, sub- 
divided into regular companies headed by white flags 
the spearmen advanced. The four maxims came into 
action in an instant. The battery trotted back a 
couple of hundred yards to get a range. It then 
opened with case-shot. The squadrons retired at a 



202 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

walk, alternately facing and threatening the foe. The 
promptness with which each unit acted prevented a 
catastrophe and the retreat was continued without 
confusion, whilst the spearmen's advance was tem- 
porarily checked. 

But now the Dervish spectators in the position with 
one accord opened a sustained though wild fire. The 
range was too great for accuracy, but the effect, 
extremely galling as it was, was not allowed to hasten 
the retreat. Meanwhile the staff officers for nearly 
an hour had examined the ground. It was high time 
to withdraw. Indeed the order to do so was given none 
too soon. 

Already on three sides Dervishes menaced the 
column in considerable numbers. The fourth side 
might shortly be closed. Baring on the desert flank was 
reinforced by one squadron but was pressed so hard 
when the retirement started that Broadwood sent 
him another, making four in ah. Alternately the 
battery and maxims retreated a few hundred yards, 
faced about and poured out a damaging fire on the 
advancing foe. On the river flank, which now claimed 
the commander's attention, the Baggara horse made a 
bold attempt to cut in behind and capture the guns. 
This was frustrated only in the nick of time by Broad- 
wood himself. He promptly took command of both 
squadrons on this flank, sounded the "advance," then 
the "charge" and — leading them in person — struck the 
loose assemblage of 400 Baggaras obhquely. The 
shock upset them. They were routed in a few moments 
and fell back. The squadrons were then ralhed and 
dismounted, and directed to open carbine fire on the 
retreating enemy. Here we will leave them for the 
moment. 

But meanwhile the precious guns were also in 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 203 

danger from the pursuing spearmen in their front. So 
Baring with two squadrons from the desert flank 
galloped to the rescue, rode across the front of the guns 
and charged the enemy in flank. He routed them, 
broke them up and rode completely through them, but 
not without disordering his own command. When his 
troopers came out on the river flank, their companions 
were already dismounted and firing volleys as already 
described. Baring therefore rahied behind them, 
restored order in his squadrons and returned with 
them to his post on the left. 

The two charges I have thus described, supple- 
mented by the fire of the guns, maxims and troopers, 
temporarily checked the whole Dervish movement 
and saved the situation. An attack in force by the 
enemy's infantry still threatened and the white-robed 
riflemen were striding forward at a great pace. But 
Broadwood eluded the menace, withdrew his force at 
a trot and gradually shook off all pursuit. At 12 
noon the mounted troops rejoined their infantry sup- 
port and returned to camp with a loss of one British 
ofticer wounded, seven Egyptian troopers killed, eleven 
wounded and thirty horses disabled. 

The behaviour of the Fellaheen trooper, the quality 
of his British bimbashi, the confidence placed in 
them by their commander were admirably displayed 
during this reconnaissance, and, if an infantry ofticer 
may venture an opinion, I would suggest that Broad- 
wood's success was directly due to his system of 
training. Instead of fussy interference with details, 
he adopted the novel plan of allowing his bimbashis to 
really command their own squadrons. He recognised 
that two good officers may have two diametrically 
opposite methods of training men, yet may both 
produce excellent results. He supervised their work 



204 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

with intelligent interest, but never insisted on rigid 
uniformity or strict adherence to minute rules. Years 
of personal experience had taught him what was 
important and what might be considered trivial and 
he obtained from his subordinates a whole-hearted 
devotion to sensible work, such as has rarely been 
equalled before or since. And he had his reward when 
the squadrons which he had created faced odds of 
five to one in a tight place and the regenerated Fellah 
of Egypt rode down the war-lord of the Sudan at a 
signal from a British bimbashi. 

Next day the Anglo-Egyptian army moved on seven 
miles to Umdabia and marched on the following night 
to the assault of Mahmud's position. 

The reconnaissances had been deliberate, thorough 
and somewhat prolonged. The army had approached 
their enemy by short marches at long intervals. 
But the final assault was swift and overwhelming. 
Its success was due to disciplined combination 
and to the practical and sensible arrangements made 
by British officers of the Egyptian staff, who had been 
working together at all kinds of soldiering during a 
number of years. This staff was accustomed to carry 
out its duties with the least amount of writing-paper 
and the fewest printed regulations, and was a live 
body — imbued with practical intelligence and resource. 
But it was not created in one day. Any nation can, in 
a crisis, enrol and arm a vast number of brave men, but 
it cannot improvise a staff, create habits of discipline 
or command military success by spending its money too 
late — this the Sudan proved, as also the South African 
and every other war ever waged. 

On April 7, 1898 towards dusk, the troops feh in 
for their twelve-mile night march, an operation which 
is always critical and sometimes disastrous, though 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 205 

absolutely necessary in tropical climates. No precau- 
tion which the Sirdar's experience could suggest was 
neglected. A staff officer, familiar with the country by 
daylight, guided the leading brigade. Careful patrolling 
guarded against surprise, and the four brigades marched 
in separate squares on a broad front ready to use their 
rifles if attacked. The cavalry remained in camp with 
orders to trot out and join the infantry before dawn, 
leaving a single battalion to guard the camp. 

At 9 P.M., a halt was called, water was served 
out from camel-tanks and the men lay down to rest on 
the open desert, protected by vigilant sentries. A 
bitterly cold wind drove clouds of fine sand across the 
landscape and any soldier who strayed from his post 
would have had a difficulty in finding it again. The 
moon rose early and illumined the weird scene of 
thousands of uneasy sleepers lying in curious atti- 
tudes beside their rifles, in death-like silence, rank by 
rank. The reserve ammunition-mules and artillery 
pack-mules received special attention to prevent them 
braying when the moon appeared. At one o'clock the 
march was resumed, and those who saw it will not 
forget the strange sight and stranger sound of thousands 
of soldiers rising from the ground and stealthily moving 
forward in ordered array — with no word uttered above 
a whisper. Only the grating and monotonous crunch 
of shoe-leather on dry sand could be heard and it 
had a sinister sound, though none could foretell the 
event. At four there was another halt, but the 
bitter cold prevented sleep and only the glow of the 
enemy's fires visible above some distant palms afforded 
a point of interest to the waiting soldiery. Four miles 
now separated the combatants. At daylight the 
deployment from square into attack-formation was 
carried out according to programme — the British 



206 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

brigade on the left, MacDonald's next, Maxwell's on the 
right, Lewis's in reserve, the batteries in the intervals 
between brigades — and thns the niaehine moved 
towards Mahnuul's position with bayonets fixed. The 
vahie of the eavalry reconnaissanees, the accuracy of 
the staff leading, the precision and timing of the night 
march were evident to all ranks, as the army strode 
without concealment straiglit towards the thorn 
thickets, where Mahnuul had been waiting for nearly 
three weeks. It halted on a gentle slope, some 900 
yards from the enemy's zariba, and here at 6.15 a.m., 
iUc infantry sat down to watch the opening of the 
battle by the artillery. 

Three uuile-batteries and the horse-artillery took 
part, twenly-four guns in all. Thud! pliiiff f / went 
the lirst discharge, and we all lot)ked hard as the shell 
burst well abo\'e the entrenchments in the middle of 
thi^ enemy's camp. A pale yellow flash in the midst of 
a ball of white smoke marked the exact spot, and then 
the crack ! of {\\c e\i>losion came faintly back, lik(^ an 
echo, from the smoky-grey mist which hung over the 
place. That first gun resembled a toy explosion in a 
toy battle, but, when report followed report in quick 
succession and the air above the trenches became 
dottc\l with white puffs dealing out shrai)nel bullets 
and the cannonade grew ever louder as the projectiles 
were nmltii>litHl, one realised that serious business was 
ow lunul. Then gradually, the strange scene became 
almost mont>tonous, and many a weary infantry-man 
dozed into slc(^p, whilst the Egyj^tian gunners plied 
their trade antl searched with tlu^ precision of their 
arm the whole interior of the circular encampment.* 
The cavalry and maxims guarded the flanks which were 
threatened but not attacked by the Baggara horse. 

* See plan facing page 208. 



ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 207 

After the shelling commenced the Dervish j^osition 
presented the appearance of a deserted place, and those 
who had not accompanied the reconnaissances could 
scarcely believe it contained 15,000 lighting men — 
waiting, as the event j^roved, to pour out a heavy 
fire at the closest range. A number of coloured banners, 
a few camels and donkeys, an occasional jibba-c\3id 
Dervish — strolling with contemptuous unconcern 
amidst shrapnel buUets-^were alone visible. All else 
seemed empty and lifeless behind the stockade and 
breastwork which ran along the front, covered by a 
thorn zariba. The naval rockets set lire to some grass 
huts and dry palm-trees and the smoke mingled witli 
shell puffs in the still air. For an hour and a quarter 
the Egyj)tian gunners distributed a continuous hail of 
shrapnel and expended a great quantity of amnumition 
in their relentless methodical manner. 

At 7.40 A.M. the guns ceased lire. Kitchener sounded 
the general advance and 9000 infantry swept majes- 
tically into action in a thin line, strengthened at 
intervals by supports. From flank to flank it was 
three-quarters of a mile long, and looked very business- 
like. Let us accompany Bimbashi Vandeleur and the 
9th Sudanese into the fray, in which they took a 
prominent part sharing with five other Sudanese 
battalions the brunt of the close lighting and tlie 
heaviest casualties. Vandeleur led the right wing of 
his battalion and was posted near the centre of the 
whole line in command of his two companies of blacks. 

During the first few hundred yards the advance was 
deliberate and slow, and several halts were made for 
volley firing ; but with the cessation of the rain of 
shells on the Dervish trenches, their unharmed riflemen 
put up their heads and opened a continuous fire from 
breastwork and stockade which, as by magic, bristled 



2o8 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

with defenders. To advance slowly, halt and shoot 
volleys merely exposed our men to unnecessary loss 
without subduing the enemy's fire. Accordingly the 
" charge " was sounded, and the eager Sudanese 
followed their beloved British officers in a rush at the 
Dervish trenches — with the bands playing and colours 
flying, just as in the days of Marlborough's great fights. 
Vandeleur claimed that one of his companies got first 
over the zariba, whilst the British brigade was delayed 
by a special drill they had invented for overcoming this 
obstacle. Practically the whole line got over at about 
the same time. Yet the enemy stuck to their posts 
like brave men and let off their rifles in the faces of 
their assailants with deadly effect. But the impetu- 
osity of the Sudanese and the drilled discipline of the 
Highlanders carried them over the breastwork and 
stockade in spite of severe punishment, and those of 
the defenders who were not immediately shot down 
were subsequently bayoneted by the supports which 
followed. 

The line moved on into the interior shooting at 
close quarters, and such was the fierce nature of the 
enemy that wounded Dervishes would rise from the 
trenches behind our backs and fire at our men with 
exasperating accuracy. The whole interior of the 
camp was honeycombed into a labyrinth of irre ular 
trenches, pits and deep holes, in which men, donkeys, 
camels and even women had been sheltered during 
the cannonade. They were now defended with the 
courage of fanaticism and had to Le cleared as they 
were encountered, for, though the enemy were at last 
bolting towards the Atbara, isolated bands would 
neither run away nor accept or give quarter. It was 
just a case of bullet and bayonet and butt, and 
resembled a hideous nightmare in which the deafening 



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ON THE ATBARA, APRIL 1898 209 

roar of musketry never ceased. Our men fought their 
way for half a mile through this curious encampment, 
now the scene of such slaughter and destruction as a 
fight to a finish must always produce. 

The action ended at the river's bank three-quarters 
of an hour after the infantry started, and we were then 
able to congratulate ourselves on a complete victory. 
Anything less would merely have led to a repetition of 
the combat at an early date, which nobody at that 
moment desired — not even the jubilant Sudanese who 
crowded round their officers with joyous beaming faces 
and insisted on shaking hands all round — first a short 
shake, then a salute, another shake and another salute, 
accompanied by proud grins. These are the men who 
deliberately run ahead of their officers to try and stop 
the bullets where the fire is hottest, so how can any one 
be surprised that their officers believe in them and 
place them amongst the best fighting troops in 
existence ? They have dash and pluck and endurance, 
and plenty of steadiness when carefully officered and 
strictly disciplined ; but above all they are intensely 
human and should never be treated like machines. 
^* I From Vandeleur's diary I find that his two com- 
panies lost five killed and twenty-eight wounded, and 
his battalion seventy-three killed and wounded out of 
a strength of 717 in action. The hard fighting was 
practically all done by eight battalions — namely, the 
Seaforth Highlanders, the Cameron Highlanders and 
six Sudanese battalions, total about 5700 bayonets. 
Their casualties amounted to 473, which works out 
at over 8 per cent. The casualties in the whole 
force numbered nineteen British officers and 533 other 
ranks, British and Egyptian. 

Mahmud was captured by the loth Sudanese and 
paraded in triumph through the streets of Berber. 

o 



210 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

One thousand one hundred other prisoners were taken. 
Some 3000 Dervishes were killed, more were wounded, 
the remainder escaped, but ceased to be in any sense 
an army during the remainder of the campaign. When 
the troops were all formed up and the wounded] had 
been succoured, the Sirdar rode round the brigades 
and was received with such an ovation of cheers as only 
a successful general can ever experience — for there 
was not a man in the force but realised that he had been 
led to victory by Kitchener's brain and Kitchener's 
tactics. 

Let those who feel inclined to scoff at all " savage 
warfare " reflect that England had been several times 
humiliated in her Sudan campaigns, and let them also 
try to picture what a catastrophe our defeat on the 
Atbara would have entailed. 



CHAPTER IX 

OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898. 

See maps facing pages 232 and 238 

The defeat and dispersal of Mahmud's army at the 
Battle of the Atbara in April removed the only formid- 
able body of Dervishes from Kitchener's path to 
Omdurman, and the Khalifa did not deem it prudent to 
send forward another contingent to delay the next 
blow. Military critics in England thereupon suggested 
that the Anglo-Egyptian force ought at once to follow 
up their victory and advance upon the city before its 
defenders were ready. The suggestion would have 
been wise and appropriate in nine campaigns out of ten, 
but its authors failed to appreciate the essential feature 
of the river war — namely the Nile flood. In April and 
May it was at its lowest. In June it would begin to 
rise and would continue rising throughout July and 
August. In September it would reach its highest 
point and then commence slowly to subside. August 
would therefore be the month to start on an offensive 
campaign. Moreover the intense heat of a Sudan 
summer and the risk of exposing the health of British 
soldiers to the fatigues of marches at night and halts in 
shadeless bivouacs by day rendered it advisable to defer 
the campaign to the autumn. Finally the Sirdar was 
not ready to start and was not the man to start before 
he was ready. 

Railhead had not reached even Berber. The new 



212 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

gunboats, travelling in parcels between England and 
Fort Atbara, could not be put together until the railway 
could deposit them near open water. Food, fodder, 
ammunition and steamer-fuel for several months must 
be accumulated and provided with transport. Sailing- 
boats must wait till half-flood before they could be 
hauled over cataracts. Telegraph lines take time to 
lay but are essential in modern war. In fact a hurried 
advance after the Atbara would have entailed vexatious 
delays at a critical stage later on. So the army retired 
into summer quarters under the substantial roofs of 
Berber and neighbouring villages, whilst Kitchener 
and all the departmental services made adequate 
preparation for future events. During four long weary 
months they toiled without rest beneath a pitiless 
sun. Along the 1400 miles of communications 
stores were pushed forward day and night, and where 
the Sirdar himself watched and planned work was got 
through quickest and best. Even impossibilities, as 
some said, were accomplished in the ordinary course 
of business, and the difhculty of getting articles to the 
front in the order of their relative importance was 
overcome, in spite of the six changes of vehicle which 
they made en route. 

Thus by the end of July the railway terminus at 
Fort Atbara presented the appearance of a busy port 
containing streets of tinned beef-boxes, biscuits, 
blankets, barrels and bales, and more than 200 
sailing-craft, whose tapering spars waved aloft as they 
rolled on the gentle billows of the broad river. At last 
both the Sirdar and the Nile flood were ready to move 
the troops, and on August 3, MacDonald's and 
Maxwell's Sudanese brigades embarked on troop-barges 
towed by steamers and started for the Shabluka cat- 
aract — 150 miles to the south. 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 213 

Vandeleur and the 9th Sudanese went in the first 
boat, heartily glad to exchange the monotony of Berber 
for the excitements of active service — his happy, 
smiling blacks packed tight as tinned sardines on the 
limited decks, whilst their wives gave them an enthusi- 
astic send-off from the shore. The Nile in flood 
presented a magnificent and imposing spectacle as the 
volume of water, a mile broad, sped through this fertile 
province at the rate of five miles an hour. The steamer 
struggled slowly against the current, and Vandeleur 
had ample time to note the scene and speculate on the 
coming campaign. Shendi and Metemma and the 
fourteen pyramids of Meroe were passed, and he was 
particularly interested in an island noted as the 
legendary abode of the Queen of Sheba. But, as the 
business of the moment was war and an army was 
concentrating at Shabluka, the reader shall not be 
detained by reflections on this historic land, but shall 
at once be transported to the advanced camp, in which 
the troops detailed below were assembled by August 
23 — with orders to start next day on their fifty-mile 
march to Omdurman — 

Sirdar. (Commander-in-Chief) Major-General Sir H. Kitchener. 

Mounted Troops. 

2ist Lancers (Colonel Martin) : four squadrons. 
Egyptian Cavalry (Lieut. -Colonel Broadwood) : nine squadrons. 
Egyptian Artillery (Major Young) : one battery, four maxim guns. 
Camel Corps (Major Tudway) : eight Egyptian Companies. 
Field Hospital, Captain Hill-Smith. 

Artillery. — Lieut. -Colonel Long. 

British. — 32nd Field Battery (Major Williams), 37th Howitzer 
Battery (Major Elmslie), two Forty-pounder guns, six maxim guns. 

Egyptian. — Four Batteries, carried by pack-mules. 

''Ammunition Columns — ist. Column (Camel Transport), 2nd Column 
(Water Transport). 



214 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Infantry. 
The British Division (Major-General Gatacre). 

ist Brigade [Brig. -General Wauchope] : ist Battalion Royal War- 
wickshire Regiment (Lieut. -Colonel Forbes), ist Battalion Lincoln 
Regiment (Lieut. -Colonel Lowth), ist Battalion Seaforth Highlanders 
(Colonel Murray), ist Battalion Cameron Highlanders (Colonel Money), 
two maxim guns. Field Hospital. 

2nd Brigade [Brig. -General Hon. N. Lyttelton] : ist' BattaUon 
Grenadier Guards (Colonel Hatton), ist Battalion Northumberland 
Fusiliers (Lieut. -Colonel Money), 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers 
(Lieut. -Colonel Collingwood), 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade (Colonel 
Howard), two maxim guns, Field Hospital. 

The Egyptian Division (Major-General Hunter). 

(i) MacDonald's Brigade [Lieut. -Colonel Hector MacDonald] : 2nd 
Egyptian Battalion (Major Pink), 9th Sudanese Battalion (Major 
Walter), loth Sudanese BattaUon (Major Nason), nth Sudanese 
Battalion (Major Jackson), Field Hospital (Captain Spong), two maxim 
guns. 

(2) Maxwell's Brigade [Lieut. -Colonel Maxwell]: 8th Egyptian 
Battalion (Kalussi Bey), 12th Sudanese Battalion (Lieut. -Colonel 
Townshend), 13th Sudanese Battalion (Lieut. -Colonel Smith-Dorrien), 
14th Sudanese Battalion (Major Shekleton), Field Hospital (Captain 
Dunn), two maxim guns. 

(3) Lewis's Brigade [Lieut. -Colonel Lewis] : 3rd Egyptian Battalion 
(Lieut. -Colonel Sillem), 4th Egyptian Battalion (Major Sparkes), 
7th Egyptian Battalion (Fathy Bey), 15th Egyptian BattaUon (Major 
Hickman), Field Hospital (Captain Jennings), two maxim guns. 

(4) ColUnson's Brigade [Lieut. -Colonel ColUnson] : ist Egyptian 
Battalion (Major Doran), 6th Egyptian Battalion (A Native Bey), 
17th Egyptian Battalion (Major Bunbury), i8th Egyptian Battalion 
(Captain Matchett), Field Hospital (Captain Whiston), two maxim 
guns. 

Gunboats (Commander CoUn Keppel, R.N.). 

Ten gunboats of various patterns, carrying altogether thirty guns 
and twenty maxims — manned by Egyptian crews, commanded by 
British naval officers. 

Transport. 

3600 Camels (Lieut. -Colonel Walter Kitchener), 5 steamers, 206 
sailing-boats (Captain Gorringe). 

Total = 22,000 combatants. 

The above army moved as a " flying Column," that 
is to say without hnes of communications beyond Fort 
Atbara. By this arrangement the difliculties of 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 215 

defending bases from raids was overcome, and all 
reserve stores moved forward in sailing-boats and 
steamers, which could accompany the march of the 
army and be moored at night on either bank of the 
river as required. 

Some refreshing rain showers laid the desert dust 
and cooled the air during our first march from Shabluka, 
and the cataract was turned with ease and comfort by 
the troops — though difficulty was experienced in 
hauling laden boats up its narrow channel, which 
reduces the Nile's width to a few hundred yards and 
greatly increases its current. Beyond the cataract 
the problem was quite simple till we reached the 
neighbourhood of Omdurman. With cavalry spread 
out like a fan several miles ahead, with gunboats on 
the river flank and camel-corps on the desert flank, the 
stolid infantry brigades moved forward on a wide front 
(ij miles) and accomplished about ten miles every day 
across a fairly level country covered by scrub and 
stunted trees. Of population there was none, as the 
Jaalin tribe had been almost wiped out of existence by 
Mahmud during the previous year. 

Meanwhile the Khalifa, fully informed of our 
advance, appears from information gathered after 
the event to have planned that Kitchener, the 
accursed, should be enticed to the outskirts of Omdur- 
man and there exterminated as Hicks had been 
exterminated in Kordofan. Like the President of 
the South African Repubhc, the Khalifa Abdullahi 
would wait till the tortoise poked its head out of its 
shell before he would deal it the death blow. The 
Baggara horse therefore retreated before our cavalry 
and evacuated Kerreri village without an encounter. 

And thus it came to pass that on September i. 
Kitchener, continuing his steady methodical movement, 



2i6 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

crossed the Kerreri ridge, descended on to a bare level 
plain and bivouacked unopposed eight miles from 
Omdurman at the village of Agaiga, by the bank of the 
Nile. The Khalifa on the same day marched 60,000 
warriors out of the city and camped them in the 
desert only five miles from Kitchener. 

Rarely have two armies aggregating 80,000 com- 
batants approached so near to one another without a 
preliminary skirmish or even an affair of outposts. 
Rarely have two commanders been more certain of 
success than were both Kitchener and Abdullah! . 
And rarely have two forces been more imbued with the 
spirit of their respective chiefs or more willing to make 
such sacrifices as might be necessary to ensure victory. 
The Dervishes were determined to fight in the open and 
die for their religion and the glory of conquest. The 
Anglo-Egyptians were prepared to attack a huge city 
and sustain enormous losses during several days' street- 
fighting — in the cause of their duty and their patriotism. 
As between the motives animating these opponents the 
verdict of the reader will doubtless vary according to 
his temperament and inclinations, but the effect was 
to bring about a collision with the least possible delay. 
The choice of the battle ground lay with the Dervishes, 
and they deliberately selected a treeless plain. Their 
military system required a clear manoeuvring area for 
concentrated masses of men to enable the Emirs to see 
what they were doing and control their numerous 
retainers. They had decided in any case to attack and 
to keep on attacking regardless of loss till they won. 
They attributed their recent defeats at Firkeh, Abu 
Hamed and The Atbara to the defensive attitude they 
had assumed in those actions. On this occasion they 
meant to revert to the precedents of Hicks' disaster 
at Shekan, Baker's disaster at El-Teb, Gordon's death 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 217 

at Khartoum and a number of minor affairs — such as 
McNeil's zariba near Suakim and the British square at 
Abu Klea, both of which had been pierced by rushes of 
spearmen. The Dervishes now possessed both riflemen 
and spearmen in greater quantities than ever. They 
would charge and charge again, as the Prophet Mohamed 
had done in all his most glorious and holy battles. 
Mahdism too should conquer on this the greatest day 
of its history, and the plains of Kerreri should witness 
the slaughter of the foe. 

Midway between the armies in their respective 
bivouacs a high conical hill, named Surgham, rose out 
of the plain. It was occupied by our cavalry and a 
signal station, and offered a distant view of the Dervish 
host which was watched through glasses till night- 
fall. 

The Dervish army left an impression of great power 
on the minds of those who beheld it marching across the 
desert towards its camp, and some of the squadrons 
saw it at very close quarters in the morning's recon- 
naissance. The enormous tract of country it filled, the 
rate at which it moved and the spirit with which it was 
animated caused thoughtful officers to doubt the issue. 
Had Kitchener sufficient force to beat off such 
numbers ? How could we stand up to their rushes 
during the darkness of the night ? Such questions 
arose involuntarily, as officers on Surgham Hill looked 
from the Dervish mass in its vast camp towards 
their own thin line, disposed in an irregular crescent 
round the village of Agaiga.* Its flanks rested on 
the bank of the Nile, and were a mile apart. The 
crescent, about two miles long, was held only by a 
double rank of infantry. Gunboats in mid-stream 
brought a cross fire to bear on both flanks, and every- 

• See plan facing page 232. 



2i8 SEYMOUR VANDEI.EUR 

where the field of fire was excellent by dayUght. But 
by moonlight no man would see further than 200 
yards beyond his rifle-barrel ! 

Thus the night of September i, was an anxious one 
for British officers, though the one most concerned, 
Kitchener, showed no anxiety. He had taken the 
precaution of privately informing some villagers of 
Agaiga that he meant to attack the Dervish army at 
midnight. He then sent them out to the Khalifa's 
camp for news of the enemy — knowing full well they 
would faithfully report his own intention to the other 
side. Whether this ruse or the rooted aversion of the 
Emirs to night operations influenced the Khalifa it is 
impossible to know. He was himself inclined for a 
night attack. He called a council of war after sunset, 
and at this council the plans for next day were dis- 
cussed and decided. The night attack was mooted and 
rejected. My own impression after carefully cross- 
examining one of the Baggara Emirs who was present 
(he was subsequently wounded and taken prisoner) is 
that the council of war was so numerously attended that 
little business could be done, and that the real decision 
rested with the Khalifa and Osman Azrak who together 
planned the attack. At any rate the hours of darkness 
passed without incident, and with daylight the Khalifa's 
best chance of victory vanished. 

The Battle of Omdurman has been described by 
many pens. My own sketch shall therefore be brief, 
and designed rather to carry forward the narrative to 
the downfall of the Dervishes a year after the action 
than to add any new light to what is known of the 
battle-tactics and incidents of September 2, 1898. The 
Dervishes were on the move long before daylight, 
mars' ailing their men in careful array, and when the 
sun rose about 5.50 a.m. an Egyptian squadron posted 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 219 

betimes on Surgham Hill beheld a stirring sight. In 
five great subdivisions, all beautifully aligned and 
occupying fully four miles of frontage, the brave Arabs 
and blacks were striding into action at a prodigious 
pace. The ranks were ten, twenty and sometimes 
thirty deep. One of the masses followed in rear as a 
reserve, marching straight towards Surgham Hill from 
which the nearest body was but one mile distant. The 
contingent of each great Emir was clearly denoted by 
his flag borne aloft on a pole or spear, and the enthusiasm 
of the whole force was sufhciently evinced by the 
unhesitating way in which it moved, and by the shouts 
and roars of tens of thousands of men calling upon 
Allah to grant them victory. Long before our troops 
could see a man or even a flag on the horizon the distant 
murmur of raucous voices gave them some idea of the 
vast numbers they were about to engage. 

The Dervish plan of attack was simple, compre- 
hensive and suitable to the ground they had selected 
and the discipline they could enforce. But it com- 
pletely miscalculated the effect of fire-arms on an open 
plain. The idea was to envelop the Sirdar's position 
and attack it from three directions whilst a central 
reserve of 20,000 picked men, concealed behind 
Surgham Hill, waited till one of the attacks should 
succeed. It was then to rush forward and complete 
the victory. The five contingents were marshalled as 
under, from left to right, but the figures should be 
accepted as only approximately correct : 



(i) Ali Wad Helu's Bright Green Flag . 

(2) Sheik-el-Din's (son of the Khahfa) Dark Green Flag 

(3) Yakoob's (brother of the Khalifa) Great Black Flag 

(4) Osman Azrak's various Flags of Subordinate Emirs 

(5) Sherif's Red Flag 



6,000 men. 
12,000 ,, 
20,000 ,, 
15,000 „ 

7,000 ,. 



Total . 60,000 



220 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

The Khalifa himself remained with Yakoob and 
the Krupp artillery near the Great Black Flag which 
was his own special ensign. The first two contingents 
were to make for the Kerreri Hills, move behind their 
cover, turn to the right and attack the northern face of 
Kitchener's crescent. The third contingent was to 
remain in reserve as stated above. The fourth under 
its celebrated fighting chief was to make a frontal 
attack across the level ground between Surgham and 
Kerreri Hills. The fifth was to chmb over the Surgham 
ridges and attack our southern flank simultaneously 
with Osman Azrak. Osman Digna with several 
hundred Hadendoa Arabs from Suakin was to lie 
in wait near the Omdurman road and fall upon any 
detachments which might try to get into the city. 
Beyond the combination arranged between Osman 
Azrak and Sherif we have no reason to believe that the 
several attacks were intended to be simu'taneous. The 
evidence rather points to the probability that each Emir 
was to emulate the zeal of his neighbour and try to be 
first into the invaders' ranks. 

Whilst the Dervishes are still marching to their 
allotted places let us glance at the map facing page 
232 and notice Kitchener's dispositions to meet the 
impending attack. He remained in the formation he 
had selected when a night attack seemed probable and 
relied wholly on fire action to win the battle. He 
therefore put as many rifles as possible in the firing 
line, keeping only two companies per battalion in 
support and one (Collinson's) brigade in reserve. 
Roughly speaking the larger half of the crescent, which 
faced Surgham Hill and the space between it and 
Kerreri Hills, was manned by the British Division and 
Maxwell's brigade. This was the part which Osman 
Azrak and Sherif were about to attack. The lesser half 



OMDURMAM, SEPTEMBER 1898 . 221 

of the crescent, facing the Kerreri Hills and ridges, was 
manned by MacDonald's and Lewis's brigades, which 
were not attacked in the early morning. Batteries of 
artillery were posted in the intervals between brigades, 
maxims between battalions. Hunter had arranged 
that his brigades should fire from a slight shelter trench 
with no zariba in front, because a zariba would merely 
impede the field of fire without affording any protection 
against the enemy's bullets. But Gatacre's British 
brigades laboriously collected branches and trees for a 
zariba and omitted to dig a shelter trench. The 
consequence was that, when the attack developed, 
the British soldier had to stand up to shoot, as otherwise 
he could not see to fire over his zariba, and he thus 
laboured under the double disadvantage of being fully 
exposed to bullets and of firing from an awkward 
standing instead of an easy kneeling position. It was a 
drawback from which Hunter's command was free. 

The 2ist Lancers and Hospitals remained within 
the fines under cover of the Nile bank whilst the attack 
was in progress. The Egyptian cavalry. Camel-corps 
and Horse Battery were posted on Kerreri Hills under 
Broadwood, where they were destined to take an 
important part. The Howitzer Battery and 40- 
pounders were several miles up the river and had 
already inflicted considerable damage on the Mahdi's 
tomb, the forts and the walls, from the right bank of 
the Nile. 

A flotilla of gunboats was engaged in reducing the 
river-forts of Omdurman, the other flotilla stood by 
with steam up to join in the general action at Agaiga, 
whenever opportunity should offer. 

Thus all the pieces were set out upon the board and 
it will be easy to follow their play and see how each 
contributed to the day's fighting. At 6.15 a.m. the 



222 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

murmur of beating drums and war-cries grew very loud, 
the tramp of Dervish feet was continuous, but as yet 
from Agaiga we could only see cavalry scouts n tiring 
before the enemy across our front. Presently a line 
of flags appeared like a crested wave on the horizon a 
mile and a half in front of Maxwell's brigade. Then a 
wave of linen-clad men emerged from under the flags 
and drove towards us straight across the plain. 
It was Osman Azrak's frontal attack. Behind and 
beyond him similar waves of Green Flags dashed 
towards the Kerreri Hills, whilst on his right the Red 
Flag of Sherif topped Surgham ridge and descended 
swiftly into the arena. Within half an hour of their 
first appearance. Maxwell's brigade was hotly engaged 
with Osman Azrak, Gatacre's Division with Sherif, 
Broadwood's troops with Sheik-el-Din and the artillery 
and maxims with all of them. The Khalifa opened the 
battle with his Krupp guns, whose shells fell close to 
our line. 

If bravery and sublime indifference to death could 
have carried men over the bullet-swept zone, Osman 
Azrak and Sherif would certainly have closed with 
Maxwell and Gatacre. But the thing was utterly 
impossible. No human being could run and live in the 
storm of lead which swept over the ground. Shrapnel 
burst amidst the more distant masses with perpetual 
accuracy : maxim and rille bullets tore through the 
flesh and bones of those who came nearer. The 
Dervish ranks nevertheless hurried unflinchingly for- 
ward in their magnificent and sullen determination 
to grapple with the foe. But the attack in broad day- 
light could have only one termination, though some 
Dervishes survived to reach within a couple of hundred 
paces of our position and some of their riflemen, 
concealed by hollows and depressions in the plain, kept 



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OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 223 

up a galling fire which killed more men in our reserves 
than in our firing fine. By 8.15 a.m. after an hour 
and a half of struggle the attack died away from sheer 
exhaustion and loss, and two of the enemy's five 
contingents were completely hors de combat. Mean- 
while the British and Egyptians had suffered casualties, 
though they passed unnoticed during the absorbing 
interest of the engagement and amounted to a mere 
nothing when compared with Osman Azrak's and 
Sherif's 2 113 killed and about 6000 wounded. These 
lay strewn over an area of a square mile, and so fierce 
is the fighting instinct of the Mohammedan warrior 
that he will rise wounded from the ground and expend 
his last breath in using his rifle or spear against any 
enemy who passes negligently near him. 

We had not wished to mow them down as they 
advanced, nor had any one relished the process of 
perpetually loading and pressing the trigger of a very 
hot rifle, but there was no other method of dealing with 
Dervishes and preventing the far greater slaughter 
which would have occurred, had they penetrated our 
formation. 

Simultaneously with the events just narrated our 
mounted force in observation on Kerreri heights became 
seriously compromised with Sheik-el-Din's contingent, 
and the action which ensued was to have a direct 
bearing on the principal incident of the diy. Broad- 
wood's role was to observe and co-operate and feint. 
He had no intention of undertaking a separate battle 
on his own account, nor was his force organised for 
close fighting in the hills. It numbered 1800 men, 
trained to fight on foot and move on horseback or camel- 
back, and was composed of nine squadrons of cavalry, 
one battery of horse artillery and eight companies of 
camel-corps. The Kerreri slopes were everywhere 



224 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

strewn with rocks and volcanic boulders, whereas the 
level plain around them had become a marsh owing to 
recent heavy rain. On such ground the mihtary 
mobility of Broadwood's three arms may be compared 
with that of a hunter, a hansom-cab and a milch-cow. 
The desert-bred camel floundered hopelessly in the 
marsh or stumbled painfully over boulders : the gun 
w^heels were in frequent difiiculties : the cavalry alone 
could be depended on to move quickly. 

When Sheik-el-Din's thousands surged rapidly upon 
them, Broadwood's men were posted on foot along 
some ridges with their animals well in rear. Their 
command, r had but a moment in which to come to a 
decision, and a moment was sufticient. He ordered 
the men to retire and mount. They as usual supported 
one another by a covering fire and, working with 
deliberation, sought to check the tide of the enemy's 
attack. Having regained their mounts the retirement 
continued. This unequal combat was observed from 
Agaiga with some apprehension, and the batteries 
which could bear on Kerreri Hills diverted their lire 
from Osman Azrak and burst shells amongst Sheik- 
el-Din's men at 3000 yards. The Sirdar thought it 
would be prudent to withdraw the cavalry within the 
main lines, but Broadwood sent him a message that he 
was too closely engaged to withdraw to his flank and 
proposed to continue retiring due north till he could 
shake off his pursuers. 

But the pursuing footmen were now leaping over 
the boulders quicker than the camels, so Broadwood 
decided that he must at any rate free himself from the 
incubus of his slow-moving camel-corps, and accordingly 
ordered it to make for the Nile whilst he covered the 
movement from a flank. In order to extricate the 
camel-corps and get it safely within our lines, he was 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 225 

prepared to make a desperate charge with all his 
squadrons. Encumbered with forty wounded, the 
camels made towards the river with Sheik-el-Din's 
leading men in hot pursuit and only 300 yards distant. 
It looked as though they must be completely over- 
whelmed. But at this critical moment one of the 
gunboats swung down-stream and at short ranges 
plastered the Kerreri hill-sides with shrapnel and 
maxim bullets, checked the Dervish pursuit, obviated 
Broadwood's charge and enabled the camel-corps to 
gain the safety of our lines. The infuriated Dervishes 
baulked of their prey turned upon Broadwood with 
renewed vigour and pursued his elusive squadrons 
three miles down the river bank. Their appetite was 
whetted by the capture of two of the horse artillery 
guns, which stuck in a bog and had to be abandoned ; 
but meanwhile Sheik-el-Din was led four miles away 
from the battlefield during the most critical hours of 
the day. Broadwood's squadrons, handled as he and 
his bimbashis knew how to handle them, merely played 
with the angry Dervishes and ended by slipping back 
along the river bank under the covering fire of a gun- 
boat. They recovered their lost guns and rejoined 
the army soon after 10 a.m. Sheik-el-Din also ralhed 
and marched back his scattered command, but by the 
time it rejoined Ali Wad Helu's contingent the moment 
for its most effective action had passed, as we shall 
relate by-and-bye. Thus ended the first phase of the 
battle. 

We have, however, anticipated the main narrative 
by two hours in order to follow Broadwood's manoeuvre 
to its conclusion, and must now return to Kitchener at 
Agaiga after the frontal attack was repulsed at 8.15 
A.M. The Sirdar, having annihilated two contingents 
and seen a third quit the battlefield in pursuit of his 



226 SKYMOUR VANDKLEUR 

cavalry, deterniinod i'orthwith to reach the city before 
tlic two remaining contingents could get there to 
organise street lighting. He therefore marched out of 
Agaiga ami headed lor Omdnrman, moving in t'chclon 
of brigadc^s trom the left (river Hank) in the following 
order — jnd (Lyttelton's) l^ritish Brigade, ist (Wan- 
ch()pt>'s) Hritisli Brigade, Maxwell's Brigade, Lewis's 
J->rigadi\ MaeDonald's Brigade. Collinson's Brigade 
foUowed along the ri\'er bank as a reserve, to protect 
the hospitals and transport. As MacDonald's was the 
most e\iH)sed brigade^ in (his movement, it was rein- 
forced by three batteries artillery and six maxim 
guns. 

To interpose your own army between the enemy 
and his base is one ot the soundest and oldest of the 
maxims of good generalship. It has been applied in 
all ages and in all campaigns whether by sea or by 
land, and recpiires, to avoid defeat, that the force which 
attempts it be sutliciently strong to maintain itself 
against counter-attack. But the mancvuvre is by no 
means an easy one to execute on the iield of battle. 
In the J->oer \\'ar we accomplished it successfully at 
Paardeberg, but failed to do so at Poplar Grove, 
Driefontein, Johannesberg, Pretoria and Diamond Hill. 
The Japanese, though successful in every engagement, 
failed to interpose l^etween the Russians and their base 
at Liau-Yang and JMukden. lC\en Baron Stackelberg, 
when soundly beaten at Telissu, was able to rejoin 
Kuropat kin's army. The more we study military 
history the more we are impressed with the fact that to 
gain a really decisive action a general nuist successfully 
interpose between his opponent and his opponent's base, 
and that is why e^•ery ambitious commander has 
attempted to do it. At any rate those who feared 
the risk which such a maiuvu\re involves have not 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 227 

won the victory which perhaps their tactical successes 
have deserved. Therefore, when Kitchener headed 
for^Omdurman with two unbeaten contingents of 
Dervishes hovering stiU on his lElank, he was merely 
taking the road which would lead to the most decisive 
result — confident, after the experiences of the morning, 
that he could beat off the enemy's attacks. The 
sequel justified his opinion and refuted that of the 
critics, who perhaps forgot what has been proved a 
thousand times over — the impossibihty of bringing 
off a victory without running some risk. 

Thus at the commencement of the second phase of 
the battle we find Kitchener's army marching south- 
wards by brigades, separated from one another by very 
wide gaps, with the 21st Lancers acting as advanced 
guard. The Khalifa and his reserve still lay behind 
Surgham Hill. Ali Wad Helu remained concealed by 
the Kerreri heights. Sheik-el-Din was pursuing the 
Egyptian cavalry. The time was about 8.40 a.m. 

It was at this interesting climax that there occurred 
an episode which, owing to the praise bestowed upon it 
by public opinion at home, proves beyond doubt that 
England is the paradise of amateurs . I refer to the charge 
of the 2 1st Lancers. The regiment had never before 
been in action and every one sympathised with its ardent 
desire to achieve a success. After passing between 
Surgham Hill and the Nile it encountered various small 
parties of the retreating enemy, for by now a steady 
stream of fugitives from the beaten contingents were 
making for their homes in the city. But unfortunately 
for the Lancers there was also an ambush in a khor^ 
into which the regiment deliberately galloped. They 
suffered heavy losses without inflicting much damage, 
and then retired out of action. Such misfortunes are 
not uncommon in war, but this one was magnified by 



228 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

irresponsible writers into an Homeric Feat of Arms, 
which serious soldiers sincerely deplore. The Lancers* 
charge was not only unnecessary, but had the greater 
disadvantage of incapacitating the regiment from the 
performance of the particular duty it was brought into 
the Sudan to accomplish — namely the capture of the 
Khalifa — and the fact that both officers and men 
behaved with great gallantry in a nasty place is no 
excuse for a blunder. 

Whilst this episode was taking place and the 
Sirdar was leading the British brigades in the wake 
of the Lancers, MacDonald's brigade took ground to 
the right between Kerreri and Surgham Hills, pass- 
ing over the plain on which Osman Azrak's attack 
had been shattered. Vandeleur in the 9th Sudanese, 
belonged to this brigade, and my narrative of what 
befell it is derived from his diary and letters, which 
were written immediately after the event and furnish 
a clear and unvarnished account of what happened. 
Fortunately the men were fresh, as they were not 
in action during the first phase of the battle ; the 
brigadier, MacDonald, was a fine fighting soldier who 
knew how to train and command a brigade, and 
Hunter, his immediate superior, had cautiously 
strengthened him by the addition of all the artillery 
and maxims he could spare from his other brigades. 
Some delay had necessarily occurred before MacDonald 
could start to take his allotted place in the Echelon, 
and the result was a considerable gap between him 
and Lewis, as well as between Lewis and Maxwell. 
Moreover, these gaps tended to increase as the foot of 
Surgham Hill was neared. 

When MacDonald approached to within 1200 
yards of its western slope, he became aware that he 
was in for a stiff fight with the Khalifa's reserve 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 229 

under the Black Flag, and Hunter accordingly sent a 
galloper to Kitchener with the news. Soon after- 
wards fighting was renewed along the whole ''refused" 
flank from Kerreri hills to beyond Surgham, a distance 
of four miles, and the march on Omdurman was 
abruptly postponed. Wauchope started on a two- 
mile tramp back towards MacDonald, Lyttelton 
wheeled to the right south of Surgham slopes. Maxwell 
wheeled and stormed Surgham heights, Lewis became 
engaged between Maxwell and MacDonald, and firing 
was reopened by the Dervishes all along the hne. Each 
brigade had a story of its own but our particular 
mterest in Vandeleur engages us to follow the fortunes 
of MacDonald's men, who bore the brunt of two such 
furious attacks as have rarely been repelled in quick 
succession by a single brigade. When he saw the 
first onset impending from behind Surgham Hill, the 
brigadier halted and made preparation. He deployed 
the 9th Sudanese on the right, the nth Sudanese on 
the left, the lotli Sudanese in the centre— all facing the 
Khalifa's Black Flag— and held the 2nd Battahon in 
reserve, closed up in quarter-column ready to pro- 
long or strengthen the line as required. The three 
batteries and eight maxims were disposed in the 
intervals between the deployed battalions. Just as 
these arrangements were completed the Baggara horse 
charged down at top speed, followed by solid phalanxes 
of riflemen and spearmen on foot. It was the pick 
of the Dervish army making its effort to retrieve 
the disaster of the early morning, and might fittingly 
be compared to the last charge of Napoleon's Guard 
at Waterloo. The Emirs rode their horses with desper- 
ate energy and reminded Vandeleur of jockeys finish- 
ing for the Derby. Not one flinched or turned tail 
when met by the storm of bullets which emptied 



230 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

many saddles. On they came, and single horsemen 
almost penetrated the line, being killed a few paces 
from it. Covered by this desperate charge the body- 
guard (miilazamieh) strode forward with equal bravery 
and suffered even greater loss. Their deep ranks were 
mown down with frightful slaughter, especially at about 
200 yards range, though indi\'iduals got within fifty 
paces and less. Vandeleur wrote : " What a revela- 
tion it was to see the Dervishes come on to certain 
death without the slightest hesitation. I never saw 
one man who had approached an^^vhere near turn 
back. If he could no longer advance he lay down 
and fired." 

When 20,000 such warriors are eager to die in order 
that a remnant of them may close \nth 3000, it is 
merely a matter of time as to when the clash will occur, 
and then the smaller force will perish. But at this 
critical period Lewis and Maxwell appeared on the 
Dervish flank, and diverted the dense masses in rear 
from reinforcing the attack on IMacDonald. They were 
compelled to turn against their new assailants, and 
thus the pressure on MacDonald was greatly relieved. 
The roar of guns, maxims and rifles became incessant 
all over and around Surgham Hill, and the Remington 
rifles of the Black Flags spluttered in increasing numbers 
as the Khalifa's reserve spread out. 

The battle had lasted over four hours without many 
pauses, and was being more hotly contested than ever, 
when IMacDonald was suddenly called upon to face 
another crisis. This time it menaced his right rear 
from the direction of the Kerreri hills. 

The Green Flags of Ali Wad Helu and Sheik-el-Din 
— the latter onl}' just returned from his exhausting 
and abortive pursuit of Broadwood — were descending 
upon the rear of the 9th Sudanese whilst the battahon 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 231 

still confronted the Black Flags. It was a question of 
minutes and drill, and the minutes were at the disposal 
of one man— MacDonald. If he misused them his 
brigade would be swept away, Lewis's would follow 
a few moments later, Collinson's too must be wiped 
out— together with hospitals, transport and reserve 
ammunition. Wauchope was moving to the scene of 
action at the double but could scarcely have saved the 
situation if MacDonald's brigade had been over- 
whelmed. Thus Mahdiism's last and only remaining 
chance depended on MacDonald's making a mistake, 
and he made none. He saw what was coming, knew 
exactly what to do and did it. It was a matter of 
drill under high pressure, and he had been drilling his 
brigade under all circumstances during several years. 
He had risen from private soldier to the command of a 
brigade and was now to justify his promotion. With 
calm precision he issued his orders, and in a few moments 
all his battalions, batteries and maxims were extricating 
themselves from their engagement with the Black Flags 
and threading their way at the double by the shortest 
route into a new alignment facing the Green Flags. 
The change of front had barely been executed when 
the Baggara horse came charging home, followed by 
sohd masses of riflemen and spearmen, just as the Black 
Flags had done before. Only this time there was only 
the cavalry and camel-corps to come in on their flank. 
Vandeleur writing home within a week of the event 
said: " The 9th, which was the first battalion to form 
up on the new front, had just got into position when 
down came another charge of horse, almost a better 
one than the last, followed by the attack of the foot- 
men. Laurie's battery on our left soon exhausted its 
ammunition, but there were maxims on our right and 
the noise was tremendous. If the Green Flags had 



232 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

co-operated with the former attack and caught us in 
rear when we were engaged in front, it would have been 
extremely unpleasant. But the earlier attack had 
exhausted itself before the second came on, so we beat 
them in detail. The ist British Brigade (Wauchope's) 
could be seen hurrying to support us, but the Dervish 
attack was done for before they came up. The thing 
was over and the cease fire sounded, so I rode out in 
front of my men to stop the shooting — when a Baggara 
spearman lying down unhurt about sixty paces from 
us made for me. He ran at a great pace and my horse 
being nervous interfered with my aim. His first spear 
whizzed past my head. I hit him with two revolver 
bullets but still he closed with me. I then warded off 
his spear thrust with my right hand and revolver, and 
he fell dead — finished off by one of the men's bullets. 
But in doing it his spear wounded me in the hand 
cutting the third finger and palm. Smyth* (who had a 
similar experience) and I both agree that the new 7)ia)i- 
stoppi)igh\\\\ct is not much use against a good Dervish." 
Vandeleur's simple narrative of what he saw and what 
befell him is more graphic than some of the word- 
pictures which have since been printed and it shows how 
hotly his battalion and brigade were engaged. The 
9th Sudanese had 48 killed and wounded by Dervish 
rifle-fire, and the brigade including the artillery attached 
to it totalled 151 casualties in about three-quarters of 
an hour. \'andeleur's wound was happily a shght one, 
and he was able to stay on his horse and command his 
men. 

Thus ended the second phase of the battle. 

Before resuming his march to Omdurman, Kit- 

* Binibashi Smyth was awarded the Victoiia Cross for this 
exploit. He saved the life of a eorrespondent who was similarly 
pui-sued by au Arab. Smyth received a spear wound in the arm the 
same day as Vandeleur. 







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REFERENCE 

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DervisKes Blu^e. 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 233 

chener moved three brigades in one long line west- 
wards into the desert and drove before him, with 
considerable losses, all formed bodies of Dervishes who 
still showed an inclination to fight, and it was amazing 
to realise how much punishment they required before 
they would acknowledge defeat. At last the weary 
troops turned from the field of slaughter, marched to 
Khor Shambat — which is an overflow from the Nile 
just outside the city — and halted to rest and eat 
biscuits and drink some much-needed water. The 
heat was intense and very little shade was obtainable 
between i p.m. and 5 p.m., when the bulk of the army 
marched into Omdurman — which had meanwhile been 
captured by Maxwell's brigade. 

This event which coincided with the pursuit of the 
Dervishes by the Egyptian cavalry for thirty miles 
south of the city, constituted the third and last phase 
of the day's operations. 

When the Khalifa Abdullahi saw that his attacks 
had failed, that his brother Yacoob and thousands of 
his best troops were killed, that his son Sheik-el-Din 
was carried wounded from the field, and that the 13th 
Sudanese were descending upon him from the top of 
Surgham Hill, he mounted his horse and rode swiftly 
to the city to organise its defence with the remnant 
of his army. For the last time his great war-drums 
and ombeya of elephant tusk resounded from the top of 
the arsenal and boomed forth their dismal message 
to assemble the faithful. We heard them at Khor 
Shambat three miles away and knew what they meant. 
For the last time the Khalifa ascended the pulpit of 
the mosque to encourage his bodyguard and exhort 
them to defend their homes and his. But those who 
were present and unwounded heeded him no longer. 
Their enthusiasm was dead^ 



234 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

At 2.10 P.M. Maxwell's brigade and the 32nd 
Field Battery paraded at Khor Shambat and marched 
into the city to reduce it to obedience. The start was 
so quietly managed and the army was so tired that the 
brigade got off without being noticed and was accom- 
panied by no war correspondent but the Hon. Hubert 
Howard. As he was to be most unfortunately shot in 
the evening no account by an eye-witness of the fall of 
the city has appeared, though several erroneous state- 
ments have been printed. The Sirdar and his staff — 
notably Slatin revisiting the scene of his bondage — 
accompanied Maxwell and the Great Black Flag, 
borne aloft by a mounted orderly, followed Kitchener 
wherever he rode — a sign to the civil population that 
tlie Khalifa was conquered. The 14th Sudanese acted 
as escort to the Sirdar and the guns, whilst the three 
remaining battalions moved on a wide front clearing 
the side streets and guarding against ambuscades. 
Every armed man met with was ordered to throw down 
his weapon in the street. If he obeyed he was let off, 
if he disobeyed he was shot, and the news that the 
conquerors meant neither to sack the city nor massacre 
its inhabitants soon produced stacks of rifles and 
spears in the streets we occupied. The main thorough- 
fare by which the Sirdar entered was fifty yards wide 
and was thronged by an immense population, mostly 
women. It led straight to the corner of a massive 
masonry wall surrounding the heart of the town and 
containing the Mahdi's tomb. Khalifa's house, treasury, 
arsenal and many other substantial buildings — around 
which were the soldiers' quarters occupying an area of 
fully one square mile. Within this walled enclosure 
were also immense stores of grain and solid well- 
constructed armouries, in which the precious Remington 
rifles and cartridges were kept under lock and key except 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 235 

when temporarily issued for fighting or drill. The 
twenty-foot wall had been erected since Slatin's escape, 
and he was therefore unable to guide us into the interior ; 
in fact, besides some gates on the river face protected 
by forts, there were only two entrances to the great 
enclosure which was practically a prison. It was there- 
fore decided that the 13th Sudanese should make their 
way down to the Nile and break in under cover of the 
gunboats, whilst the remainder of the brigade held all 
the streets leading from the mosque and thus protected 
the flank and rear from surprise. 

Accordingly the 13th — commanded by Smith- 
Dorrien — marched to the river, took the forts in 
reverse and, after skirting the great wall for a couple of 
miles, discovered a massive wooden gate which was 
barred. They heard voices within, and a half com- 
pany was drawn up ready to shoot, whilst the gate 
was being smashed open with a beam. It was all very 
interesting and very exciting for those who took a 
share in the adventure, for no one could guess what 
might occur at any moment. At last half the gate was 
forced open, we squeezed into the enclosure and 
beheld numbers of the Khalifa's riflemen bolting up 
the streets and alleys. Only one body of Dervishes 
and some stray individuals showed signs of fight and 
were promptly shot. The majority had had enough 
of slaughter, like ourselves, and threw down their arms 
when ordered. At first slowly, then quicker and 
quicker, the piles of Remingtons and bandoliers grew 
in the street — till they amounted to thousands, guarded 
by a few sentries. Undoubtedly our air of confident 
assurance and habit of commanding blacks imposed 
on the enemy and prevented them from realising that 
only one battalion and some guns had entered the en- 
closure. 



236 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

A broad thoroughfare led straight to the Mahdi's 
tomb, less than a mile from the gate we had forced, 
and all around covering an immense area of ground was 
a squalid medley of diminutive hovels, houses and 
alleys — the home of the 10,000 picked Sudanese who 
had formed the Khalifa's bodyguard. Above the 
roofs appeared the two-storied abodes of the Emirs and, 
framing the picture, the solid masonry wall which for- 
bade ingress or egress to the inhabitants. 

Our objective was the Mahdi's tomb, a fine structure 
whose dome had been shattered by the third shot of the 
howitzer battery, at a range of two miles from across 
the river. The battalion advanced cautiously towards 
it, dropping sentries at the side streets, for experience 
had taught its officers to be alert and leave nothing to 
chance. Around the tomb and other public buildings 
unexploded howitzer shells were lying about in the 
streets, where they remained a serious danger until 
removed and sunk in mid-Nile. Near the tomb were 
the Khalifa's house and the great Mosque Square where 
a miserable sight met our gaze — hundreds of wounded 
Arabs and blacks sitting or lying, quite impassive 
beneath some shade, attended by their wives who 
brought them water. They informed us that the 
Khalifa had just left the Mosque to go into his house, 
adjoining it. The 13th, having been so near him at 
Surgham, were desperately keen to catch AbduUahi 
and hurried at once to his door. It was bolted and 
had to be broken open. A labyrinth of courtyards, 
passages and doors puzzled our blacks who failed 
to find him in the front rooms, but a turning to the 
right led into the Mosque Square whence an open 
gateway gave access to the back. Quickly we took 
this line and were provided with a dramatic incident 
which, at sunset, terminated an eventful day. 



OMDURMAN, SEPTEMBER 1898 237 

A low wall surrounded the Mosque Square into 
which the faithful flocked daily for prayer through 
several wide entrances — one of which was near the back 
door of the Khalifa's house. When we approached 
this entrance from the mosque side, six horsemen were 
observed galloping across it from behind the Khahfa's 
house, and their long spears remained visible just above 
the waU as they rode on. They saw us making for the 
entrance and only thirty yards from it, whereupon two 
of their number stopped and waited behind the wall. 
One dismounted and could no longer be seen, the other 
sat on his horse and poised his spear above his head — 
ready for action. Their four companions galloped 
away as fast as they could. Evidently something was 
up, so a section of the leading company of the 13th 
Sudanese was drawn across the entrance with bayonets 
fixed and rifles loaded. A pause ensued, during which 
we all watched the spear poised above the wall in the 
Baggara's hand. Then suddenly hke a flash of hght- 
ning the two desperate men charged home, one on foot 
the other mounted. The man on foot threw one spear 
before he started from behind the wall, then closed 
with another in his hand and wounded one of our blacks. 
The horsemen made good his point and transfixed a 
Sudanese corporal through the skull with his spear, 
pinning him against the mosque wall and instantly 
kilhng him. Both the Baggaras then fell dead at the 
feet of our men riddled with bullets, as was also the 
horse. 

It was a gallant act gallantly performed in order to 
gain a few moments time for the Khalifa to escape us. 
He was one of the four horsemen we had seen, and the 
sacrifice of their lives which his two men so willingly 
made delayed us just enough to prevent our shoot- 
ing at Abdullahi as he rode down the street. Then 



238 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

suddenly the battalion and staff assembled round the 
Khalifa's house felt shells bursting above their heads 
and shrapnel bullets whizzing about them. These were 
most accurately aimed and very unpleasant. Obvi- 
ously we had come under the tire of the two British 
guns which had been posted outside the great enclosure, 
and our musketry had attracted their attention. They 
knew not that they were shooting at their friends. 
Hunter at once ordered the Khalifa's house to be 
evacuated, but most unfortunately Mr. Hubert Howard 
— the Times correspondent — was struck in the head by 
a shrapnel bullet and killed on the spot. It was a 
cruel end to a brilliant young life, to be thus sacrificed 
at the close of the battle. The Sirdar and all those 
present ran a similar risk, but it would be foolish to 
impute blame to the staff or the gunners who had no 
means of knowing that the Khalifa's house was already 
in our possession. Such accidents are unavoidable in 
war, and must be risked if artillery is to effectually 
support infantry assaults. 





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CHAPTER X 

ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 

See map facing page 252 

On Friday September 2, 1898 the Dervish army was 
shattered and dispersed as narrated in the last chapter ; 
on Saturday an Egyptian brigade took charge of the 
city of about 250,000 inhabitants ; on Sunday at 
Khartoum a touching rehgious service was held in 
memory of Gordon on the ruins of his palace, over 
which the British and Egyptian flags were hoisted with 
due ceremony ; on Monday some semblance of law 
and order was established in Omdurman ; on Tuesday 
the British troops began their return journey to Cairo 
and England ; on Wednesday a Dervish steamer arrived 
from Fashoda with its old paddle-boxes riddled by the 
French bullets of Major Marchand's Mission ; and on 
Thursday the Sirdar steamed up the White Nile with 
a flotilla of gunboats and a sufficient military force to 
overpower the intruders, if necessary. 

As Vandeleur did not accompany Kitchener during 
the episode known as the Fashoda Incident, we need 
only remark that it was settled to the satisfaction of 
both England and France, and that Major Marchand 
was cordially entertained by every British officer whom 
he met at Omdurman, Cairo and lastly at Fort Nasser — 
our furthest post up the river Sobat — on his road to 
France through Abyssinia. All who had the pleasure 



240 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

of meeting him were most favourably impressed by the 
personahty of this enterprising French officer. 

Meanwhile, although the Khalifa's adherents had 
fled from the stricken field, his garrisons in outlying 
provinces refused to disperse and had to be separately 
dealt with. The great rivers soon came under our 
control and military posts were quickly established in 
the chief riparian towns, but in the interior the well- 
disposed populations were perpetually harassed, raided 
and looted of their grain, flocks and herds. In fact 
the battle of Omdurman marked the beginning of 
a period of fifteen months' hard work by the Egyptian 
army. So long as the Khalifa remained at large, this 
remarkable man — notwithstanding his crushing defeat 
— maintained a firm hold on all the turbulent elements 
in the land and rendered any peaceful settlement 
impossible. He attracted to his standard the leading 
Arabs with their numerous retainers, who, after fourteen 
years of undisputed sway, were naturally averse to 
submitting to the new regime. 

The first and most formidable of these was his 
cousin, Ahmed Fedil, who commanded 8000 well- 
disciplined men at Gedaref and on the Blue Nile. To 
him General Hunter, left in supreme command during 
Kitchener's absence at Fashoda, sent two emissaries to 
announce the destruction of the Omdurman army and 
the fall of the city, at the same time offering liberal 
terms to induce the Dervishes to disarm and disperse. 
But Ahmed Fedil only flew into a rage, declared to his 
followers that Omdurman still held out, shot one of the 
messengers, flogged the other, and sent him back to 
tell Hunter that he meant to fight it out to the bitter 
end. And he kept his word for fourteen weary months. 
Hunter saw that he had better deal with him before the 
Blue Nile should subside to unniivigable dimensions, and 



ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 241 

accordingly organised river reconnaissances and military 
garrisons all the way from Omdurman to Rosaires — 
400 miles distant. 

Thus, Vandeleur in command of eighty selected 
men of his battalion was again on the warpath, even 
before his wound was healed — as he started within ten 
days of receiving the injury with a splint still on his 
finger, and proceeded to Abu Haraz, 140 miles up the 
Blue Nile.* 

Hunter's object was to prevent Ahmed Fedil from 
crossing the river from east to west without a deci- 
sive engagement. The latter's object was to effect a 
crossing, march to the White Nile, cross it also, and 
so join forces with the Khalifa in Kordofan. But the 
passage of a wide and deep river patrolled by vigilant 
gunboats was more than he could accomplish, so after 
several futile attempts he retired inland towards 
Gedaref, the principal town of his district, to await 
the fall of the flood-water and the consequent disap- 
pearance of the pestilent gunboats. 

The distance between Abu Haraz and Rosaires, the 
extreme hmit of navigation, was no less than 260 miles 
by river ; and Ahmed Fedil who knew the country well 
dodged from place to place collecting his food from 
the unfortunate inhabitants, who fled for protection to 
our miUtary posts and gunboats. These were kept 
perpetually on the alert in expectation of an attempt at 
crossing at one spot or another, and Vandeleur and his 
gunboat were very busy between Abu Haraz, Wad 
Medina and Sennar. The eastern bank of the Blue 
Nile and the country behind it were densely clothed in 
tropical vegetation, almost impossible to operate in 
with success. In fact the campaign seemed as if it 
might drag on for an indefinite time without decisive 

* See map facing page 252. 

Q 



242 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

result, whilst the peoples of several rich provinces 
bordering the tributaries of the Blue Nile and Atbara 
were unable to gather the harvest, now almost ripe. 
Fortunately, however, Ahmed Fedil could be attacked 
in rear as well as held in front and the period of 
uncertainty was greatly reduced by two brilliant little 
actions, which rellected more credit on the Egyptian 
army than has yet been recognised. I refer to the 
battles at Gedaref on September 22, and near Rosaires 
on December 26, 1898. Their merit has not yet been 
fully appreciated even by the small public whicli 
interests itself in such matters. 

It will be within the recollection of the reader that 
Kassalawas hantledover by the Italians to the Egyptian 
army on Christmas Day, 1897, and had since been held 
strictly on the defensive. The moment was now at 
hand for its garrison to act. As soon as authentic 
news arrived concerning the Battle of Omdurman, its 
commander Lieut. -Col. Parsons, who was well informed 
regarding Ahmed Fedil's movements, organised the 
following lield force and started with it for Gedaref — 

Half 16th EgypUan Battalion (Capt. McKcrrel and Capt. 

Dwyer) ........ 

Half im Arab Battalion (formerly Italian, now commanded 

by Capt. Wilkinson) ...... 

TrroguLir.*? (iNT.ijor 1 awson) ...... 

Sudaiioso Caniol-Coips (Capt. Hon. A. Ruthvcn) 

Total . . 1.380 

This force had no artillery or maxims and only seven 
British otVicers, including the doctor, Captain Fleming, 
who greatly distinguished himself and was awarded 
the D.S.O. 

Parsons' object was to capture Ahmed Fedil's base 
of supply whilst this chief was engaged with Hunter on 
the Blue Nile. The column accomplished the dilhcult 



500 


men. 


450 


, , 


350 


,, 


80 


«t 



ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 243 

march of 107 miles to Gedaref in excellent style 
crossing the flooded Atbara in boats of their own 
construction. On September 22, they arrived soon 
after sunrise within four miles of the town, but their 
approach was discovered, and the Emir SaaduUa at the 
head of 3400 Dervishes, detached from Ahmed Fedil's 
mainbody, was ready to dispute their further progress. 
Parsons, reconnoitring in front of his marching column, 
beheld this body of men advancing in three hues straight 
for his force, and knew that a collision must occur within 
half an hour. He also noticed from the hill on which he 
stood that a mile to his right front a small ridge rose 
well above the plain and offered a favourable position 
if only he could get his men on it before the Dervishes. 
He therefore deflected their march to the right and 
ordered them to move at the double. In good order 
but breathless they gained the ridge before the enemy 
reahsed their object ; but the transport camels and 
hospital lagged dangerously in rear and attracted the 
attention of a large body of Dervishes who detached 
themselves from the main force. Meanwhile the Arab 
Battalion and i6th Egyptians were lining the crest of 
the ridge, which the Dervish columns immediately 
attacked. They came boldly up in their usual way, 
some riflemen getting within 200 yards of the top. But 
the Egyptians, Arabs and Irregulars, standing in high 
grass on the ridge, poured out such a destructive 
fire that the attack held off, though our losses were 
numerous. Then, when the attacking line wavered and 
individual Dervishes even ran back, our line advanced 
upon them from the ridge and completed their dis- 
comfiture. 

But at this moment Parsons became aware that his 
transport, seeking cover behind the rising ground, was 
in danger of being overwhelmed by a Dervish attack 



244 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

in his rear. He was between two fires; and the 
situation was critical. His only chance lay in launching 
the Arab Battalion boldly at the Dervishes in his front, 
whilst the steady i6th was brought back to the ridge, 
to shoot in the opposite direction. It turned about at 
once and did its duty splendidly. Already the enemy 
were right in amongst the camels, hamstringing and 
killing, when they received at loo yards' range the 
appalling tire of the i6th Egyptians who treated them 
to continuous independent shooting. This settled 
the question. Both parties of Dervishes tied in confu- 
sion, pursued by our Arabs and Irregulars for a short 
distance. Our loss was 53 killed, 61 wounded and many 
camels gone. The Der\ishes lost over 450 killed and 
wounded. There were several gallant deeds performed 
during the short sharp encounter, notably by Captain 
the Hon. A. Rutliven who was subsequently decorated 
with the \'ictoria Cross. 

At 12 noon Gedaref surrendered together with 
Nur Angara — one of Gordon's old warriors — two guns 
and 200 blacks, who took service ^^'ith the victors. The 
place was at once put into a proper state of defence, as 
the Dervishes, encamped within a few miles, might 
probably attack and would certainly cut off convoy's 
from Kassala. Within a week they did attack in great 
strength, but the intervening days had been so well 
spent in clearing the ground and loopholing the walls 
of the lariiest houses that it was unlikelv the\' should 
succeed against the troops who had so recently defeated 
them in the open. Their three attacks only resulted 
m a loss of over 500 to themselves. The garrison was 
cut oft" and practically besieged but no impression could 
be made on its defences. Being without artiller}' 
the captured Dervish guns were turned upon their late 
owners with satisfactory results, and from start to linish 



ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 245 

the diminutive Kassala column proved a remarkable 
success. It would not, however, have been prudent to 
launch it against Ahmed Fedil in his chosen position, 
so General Rundle organised another column at Abu 
Haraz in which Vandeleur commanded a half-battalion 
of the 9th Sudanese. This column reached Gedaref 
on October 21, and on October 24, Ahmed Fedil and 
his army — much reduced in size — departed for the 
almost impenetrable forests through which flows the 
Binder River. His progress was slow, and he made 
frequent halts to enable him to raid the neighbourhood 
for grain and cattle, as well as to patrol the Blue Nile 
and learn where he might cross it. But everywhere 
he found gunboats within hail, so at length he made up 
his mind to a long march south in order to cross above 
the Rosaires cataract and avoid them. Thus the 
game of hide-and-seek continued through December 
and only came to an abrupt end at the beginning of 
1899. 

For some time Lieut. -Col. Lewis had been patroUing 
with cavalry along the left bank of the river and had 
kept himself well posted as to Ahmed Fedil's move- 
ments. He therefore betook himself to Rosaires in 
anticipation of events and, when reports reached him 
that the Emir was actually crossing the river twenty 
miles to the south, he at once marched to attack him 
with the following force : 

loth Sudanese (Lieut.-Col. Nason and Major Fergusson) 
9th Sudanese (Capt. Sir H. Hill) . 
Two maxims (Sergeants Lambert and Trowbridge). 
Irregulars (Sheik Abu-Bakr) .... 

Medical Corps (Capt. Jennings) .... 

Total. . 954 j „ 

This was on Christmas Day, 1898. After a halt to sleep 



Sio 


men 


30 


9» 


10 


*f 


400 


»• 


4 


*t 



246 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

in a village half-way, the march was resumed at 3 a.m. 
the following morning and continued till eight, along 
the eastern bank through a forest of thick-set bush. 
Then suddenly the advanced-guard encountered a 
Dervish outpost which it drove in : and the column 
debouched on the edge of the water, opposite a bare 
island of sand and shingle in the middle of the Blue 
Nile. On this island, a mile long and three-quarters 
of a mile \vide, the Dervish camp and a large force were 
plainly visible. Beyond the island, the western bank 
of the river rose in a cliff forty feet high, on the summit 
of which Ahmed Fedil himself and several hundreds of 
his rifle-men were already posted. In fact Lewis had 
caught the Dervish force in the act of crossing ; their 
strength was divided between the island and the cliffs^ 
and the deeper, broader and swifter arm of the river 
separated their two parties. They were, however, in 
much greater strength than he had been led to expect 
and the situation looked nasty. Of the two bodies, 
that on the island was clearly the stronger, and Lewis 
had to make up his mind how to deal vdth it. 

If he did not attack quickly, the Dervishes certainly 
would either attack him or escape across the river to 
their friends, so with the bold instinct of a true soldier 
he made up his mind to attack at once. He realised 
the hazard but had no alternative, and, having counted 
the risk, he launched his little column against 3000 men. 
The brunt of the fighting which ensued fell upon that 
magnificent battalion the loth Sudanese, and if an}^ of 
my readers should still doubt the value of our Sudanese 
regulars, surely the action above the Rosaires cataract 
— 400 miles from Khartoum — will convince them of 
their mistake. 

On the further edge of the island, opposite the cliffs, 
a line of low sand-hills afforded the Der\^shes a strong 



ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 247 

position, with level shingle between themselves and 
Lewis. He therefore opened the fight with long-range 
volleys and maxims, which could by no means dislodge 
the enemy, but did elicit a hot rejoinder and so enabled 
him to mark the exact position they occupied. He 
then ordered the maxims to maintain their fire whilst 
he sent the Irregulars across by a ford, with instructions 
to attack from the south end of the island and hold the 
enemy in position till they could co-operate with the 
regulars. At the same time he crossed over with the 
loth Sudanese by another ford, in order to reach the 
north end of the island and assault the enemy's flank. 
When the loth reached the place in full view of the 
cliffs they deployed rapidly into line and — with that 
mixture of dash and discipline which was the character- 
istic of the battalion — advanced across the open against 
the sand-hills. They immediately became the target 
of a furious musketry fire from both sand-hills and 
cliff, and nearly a quarter of their numbers lay 
strewn over the ground — killed or wounded. But the 
five companies led by their two British officers never- 
theless charged forward, increasing their pace as they 
went till they reached the sheltering foot of the nearest 
sand-dunes, where they were ordered to pause and take 
breath. Thereupon the enemy, deceived by appear- 
ances, rose with a confident shout from behind knolls 
and hillocks, and, encouraged from the cliff by war- 
drums and yells of triumph, advanced against their 
hesitating foe to demolish him. But they had mis- 
understood the loth Sudanese, who, in compliance with 
their officers' orders, quietly lined the tops of the sand- 
dunes and poured forth upon their attackers a con- 
tinuous and deadly fire at short range. The effect was 
immediate. The Dervishes wavered, then broke and 
fled, pursued by our exulting blacks from sand-ridge 



248 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

to sand-ridge. Some made for the river and attempted 
to swim it, others escaped to the south of the island and 
were attacked by the Irregulars. The loth moving 
in one long irregular line swept over the ground, driving 
their adversaries before them over hillock and down 
dale, rolling up the Dervish line from end to end, till 
they held the smvivors at their mercy on the south 
corner of the island — with a deep river running at seven 
miles an hour at their backs. 

The action was over. B}'^ three o'clock 2100 
Dervishes had surrendered to the victors, who had been 
marching and lighting for fully twelve hours. The 
losses of the loth Sudanese included Major Fergusson 
wounded, 30 men killed and 117 wounded. The 
Irregulars had 40 casualties. The Dervish killed were 
computed at 600, besides those drowned in the river. 
Ahmed Fedil escaped with the party which had previ- 
ously crossed the Blue Nile. He marched over to the 
\Miite Nile at Renk where a gunboat met him. The 
majority of his force at once came in to tender their 
submission and were sent to Omdurman. But the Emir 
himself and his most trusted retainers managed to 
cross the river in the night, and made their way to the 
Khalifa in Kordofan — a broken band. 

There we will leave them for the present. Peace 
at last reigned in the Blue Nile provinces, and the 
weary populations and soldiery enjoyed a period of 
rest and quiet. 

Many details of interest have necessaril}^ been 
omitted in the foregoing narrative, in order to concen- 
trate attention upon active operations which led to 
defmite results. But, although successful skirmishes 
and battles are more attractive topics than records of 
sickness and failure, it should not be supposed that 
soldiering in the Sudan was devoid of dull months and 



ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 249 

keen disappointments to individual officers. Wiiilst 
a few were taking part in the actions at Gedaref and 
Rosaires the majority were coping with an epidemic 
of fever on the Blue Nile which seriously incapaci- 
tated the force. I find in Vandeleur's diary a copy of 
the daily sick report for the garrison of Karkoj on 
November 21 which states that 343 were in hospital out 
of a total of 408 men in the place. It is not therefore 
surprising that, after Ahmed Fedil had been dealt with 
and the Khalifa's Kordofan gathering had been recon- 
noitred by Colonel Kitchener, the Sirdar (now Lord 
Kitchener of Khartoum) deemed it wise to grant the 
Egyptian army a period of rest in comfortable quarters, 
after their harassing campaign. 

Leaving small but sufficient garrisons at Fort 
Nasser, Sobat, Fashoda, Rosaires, Sennar, Kassala 
and a few other places, he withdrew the scattered 
army and concentrated it at or near Omdurman for 
recuperation and training. Meanwhile a liberal 
Gazette of Honours and Rewards, of which the Egyp- 
tian army obtained a full and well-merited share, 
showed that England appreciated the work of her 
sons on the Nile. Lieutenant Vandeleur received an 
honourable " mention in official despatches " and was 
decorated with the Order of the Medjidie. Subse- 
quently he was promoted captain in the Scots Guards 
and Brevet Major in the Army, the latter as a recogni- 
tion of his services in Nigeria. He thus obtained Field 
rank before the age of thirty. 

Early in 1899, Kitchener selected him for the 
appointment of Inspector in the soldi r-civilian service 
which was destined to start the Sudan on its new 
career of regeneration and prosperity, and he com- 
menced his task in March under Lieut. -Col. Mahon in 
the Khartoum province. There was an immense work 



250 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

to be done and it could only be accomplished very 
gradually, for the populations, however friendly, were 
so inured to oppression that they could not believe in 
the possibility of what we call Justice. The first and 
most urgent step was to put a curb on flagrant cases 
of murder by individual ruffians, and to bring these 
malefactors to book in open court. Egyptian mamours 
were appointed to the various subdivisions of the 
province, police posts were arranged in the towns and 
villages, and it was the Inspector's duty to constantly 
visit all these, both on the White and Blue Niles, and 
to keep in touch by personal intercourse with whatever 
occurred \vithin his jurisdiction. Vandeleur was in fact 
the outward and visible emblem of British civilisation 
to the inhabitants of the Khartoum province and had 
a steamer at his disposal for his necessary journeys. 

But, as the months rolled by and our soldier- 
civilian officers came to identify their interests with 
those of the peoples whom they governed, it became 
more and more evident that the Khalifa, though still 
withdrawn into the province of Kordofan, was a 
serious hindrance to the progress of adjoining districts. 
Between Duem and Fashoda for a distance of 300 miles 
the left bank of the White Nile and its vast hinterland 
remained at the mercy of his followers, and Vandeleur's 
journal contained numerous entries concerning the 
raids and murders which came to his notice. The 
Khalifa's armed force — instead of diminishing as had 
been confidently hoped — increased with the lapse of 
time and immunity from attack. Far from being an 
outlaw, he was actually the ruler of the province from 
which he and his Baggara had sprung. Such a fire- 
brand in the midst of emotional and warlike tribes 
could not be tolerated by a government which aspired 
to bring about the peaceful regeneration of the Sudan, 



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ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 251 

so in October 1899 the Sirdar organised a military 
expedition to deal with the nuisance. 

At that time the Khalifa and his army — 4000 
fighting men — were located at Gebel Gedir in the hinter- 
land of Fashoda, 100 miles from the Nile. The diffi- 
culty of getting at him was very great, chiefly owing 
to the arid nature of the belt of country between the 
river and his camp. For fifty miles the troops had to 
carry their water for the march, and it was impossible 
to conceal their departure from AbduUahi's spies, who 
swarmed between Omdurman and Fashoda. The 
attempt was worth making, but it failed. Two days 
before our cavalry reached Gebel Gedir the Khalifa 
and his whole force with women, children and baggage 
disappeared into the recesses of southern Kordofan. 
As it was no use pursuing this elusive army from camp 
to camp, and more definite results would be obtained 
by striking at the head than by following the tail, 
Lord Kitchener at once ordered the whole expedition 
to return to Omdurman and wait for another and a 
better opportunity. It was a great disappointment to 
the officers and men of the Egyptian army, and with 
sad hearts we returned to garrison duty on Novem- 
ber I, finding no consolation in the gloomy telegrams 
which reached us from the seat of war in Natal and 
Cape Colony. 

But the Sudan is and always has been a land of 
surprises, and its people are unaccountably credulous. 
Rumours reached the bazaars of Omdurman that the 
Khahfa was coming to attack us, that his friends in 
the city were inciting the populace to rise against the 
soldiers, that arms (lying buried in the desert) would 
be available. That he intended to march 400 miles 
through Kordofan to attack the army from which he 
had just escaped at Gebel Gedir was more than we 



252 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

could pretend to believe, but the bazaars believed it, 
and the bazaars were right. He was preaching a holy 
war in the same country and at the corresponding date 
to that preached by the successful Mahdi. Did they 
not all recollect the glories of those Kordofan victories, 
which culminated in Hicks' disaster on November 5, 
1883 ? Next we had definite news of him by telegraph. 
He had marched 200 miles north, his advanced-guard 
under Ahmed Fedil was encamped near Abba island 
and had actually fired at our gunboats. 

Next morning, November 13, the 9th and 13th 
Sudanese battalions left for the scene of action and 
occupied Ahmed Fedil's camp without resistance. He 
was evidently on a grain-looting expedition, preparing 
food dep6ts for his uncle's march on Omdnrman. Lord 
Kitchener hurried from Cairo whither he had gone 
to consult Lord Cromer on the Sudan budget, and 
appointed Colonel Sir R, Wingate to command the 
following field force for operations in Kordofan : 

Cavalrs". one troop (Capt. Bulkeley Johnson) ... 30 men- 

Aitillen-. one batten- (Capt. Simpson-Baikie). . . 120 ,, 

Maxims, six giins (Capt. Franks) ..... 40 ,, 

Caniol Corjis (Lieut. -Col. Heniy) ..... 430 

Qth Sudanese (Major Doran) ..... Soo „ 

13th Sudanese (Major Maxse) ..... 800 ,, 

jnd Egyptians, one Company (Eg%'ptian Captain) . . 100 



2.340 



Total . 

Colonel Le^\^s conmianded the infantry of the above, 
and 900 irregulars under ^lajor Gorringe were added to 
the force, whose transport consisted of 870 camels. 

Starting from the Nile on November 21, the column 
marched sixty miles in sixty-one consecutive hours, 
fought two successful actions, destroyed the Khalifa^ 
his principal Emirs and the last remnant of Dervish 
power, and returned on the 29th with 3000 prisoners 
of war. 



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ANOTHER YEAR IN THE SUDAN 253 

The Khalifa and all his chiefs — men whom we had 
sometimes called cowards — died at the head of their 
faithful followers, charging home with the bravery of 
despair against out disciplined blacks. Their deaths 
were more glorious than their lives and certainly more 
beneficial to the Sudan, which has since made surprising 
strides on the path of progress and prosperity. The 
action is known as the battle of El Gedid where it was 
fought . 

But Vandeleur was not to see the results of 
peace ; for on November 30, he started for Cairo and 
London, on his way to the Boer War in South Africa 
and said good-bye to the Egyptian army in which he 
had spent two happy and successful years. 



CHAPTER XI 

IN THE BOER WAR 

Travelling with five other officers — the first to 
leave the Sudan for the Boer War — Major Vandeleur 
embarked at Alexandria for Marseilles, where he 
arrived on December 13, 1S99, and heard of Gatacre's 
disaster at Stormberg. Passing through Paris, he 
learnt of Methuen's misfortune at Magersfontein, and, 
on reaching London, of Buller's defeat at Colenso and 
the appointment of Lord Roberts as Commander-in- 
Chief in South Africa. He spent six days in London, 
which was steeped in the gloom of Black Week, and 
was then very glad to embark at Southampton on 
the first outgoing troop-ship. Indeed England at that 
time presented a sorry spectacle of impotent disappoint- 
ment and was no place for an officer who knew some- 
thing; of the actualities of war. All classes were over- 
come by the unreasoning despair which a military 
reverse must always engender in a people who con- 
sistently refuse to face war as a serious business. This 
was not realised at the time and is not generally reahsed 
now, but many thinking men are aware that it is 
futile to rely upon the patriotism of indi\4duals whose 
personal ser^ice is not recognised as a Duty to the 
State. 

Our first and only Army-Corps, instead of marching 
as proposed from Cape Colony to Pretoria " in a few 
months," lay inert along a front of 500 miles from 
Modder River to Natal checked at every point. Eng- 



IN THE BOER WAR 255 

land indulged in no recrimination against individuals^ 
but cried aloud that " something must be done " — 
the usual British formula. The fate of Ladysmith, 
Kimberley and Mafeking depended upon fresh troops 
being sent out, but these were not immediately avail- 
able. We had never contemplated a big war and 
therefore possessed no plan or scheme for organising 
either a large professional army or a nation in arms. 
There was no sufficient reserve of trained officers, or 
even of horses, guns, saddlery, ammunition and equip- 
ment. Since Waterloo we had, in a military sense, 
lived from hand to mouth — fed on theories about the 
wickedness of all wars, lulled into false security by 
contemplating our wealth and our area, satisfied with 
the smug conviction that we are not as other men. 
Even the tattered " corner-boy " loafing up the Strand 
had been taught that his precious existence was more 
valuable than that of any private soldier of the Queen. 
Yet in spite of all these drawbacks the heart of the 
British people beat sound during the crisis of Black 
Week, or we should not have carried through the South 
African War. The rough, untutored patriotism of the 
nation was even in the mood to respond to any demand 
which might have been made upon it by persons in 
authority. But unfortunately our public men failed 
to rise to the occasion and grasp the elementary notion 
that it is the citizen's privilege to serve the State in 
defence of its liberties and its existence. Thus the 
new-found national spirit was frittered away instead 
of being crystallised into a permanent factor, and the 
great bulk of the people did nothing more than cheer 
the patriotic action of the few who voluntarily came 
forward with definite offers of personal service. These 
were forthcoming in all parts of our wide dominion, 
but no one had previously thought out the best method, 



256 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

or indeed any method of organising emergency troops ; 
so the matter was left to the private enterprise of a 
small number of energetic and generous men. Our 
existing Yeomanry and Volunteer Forces had never 
been called out and could not be put on a war footing 
— even for home defence. We were therefore largely 
dependent on newly raised, scratch corps, equipped on 
the spur of the moment. Thus, by dint of the unhmited 
enthusiasm of a few civilians, a number of armed men 
were hustled on board ship in England, Austraha, New 
Zealand and Canada, and despatched to the seat of 
war. The fact that many of these excellent volunteers 
had to learn to shoot, cook and ride in the presence of 
the enemy in no way lessens the gratitude we owe them 
for the assistance they rendered so promptly. But 
nevertheless, an Empire which remains content to 
entrust its defence to private enterprise is certain to 
fare very badly in conflict with a trained nation on the 
field of battle. 

On the present occasion we fortunately had to deal 
with only two small republics whose people, though 
better organised for war than ourselves owing to their 
system of universal service, were averse to discipline and 
therefore incapable of driving home concerted attacks 
or embarking upon a vigorous initiative. Thej^ en- 
joyed the advantages of being on the spot, in their 
own country, and six months ahead of us in their 
preparations for war. But they failed to benefit as 
they should have done by their own initial successes 
and our original blunders. 

On January lo, 1900, Lord Roberts and Lord 
Kitchener landed at Capetown, where they found an 
immense task awaiting them before an army capable 
of leaving a railway line could be put into the field. 
Yet it was essential to Lord Roberts' plan of campaign 



IN THE BOER WAR 257 

to have such an army at his command, and that 
quickly. It does not, however, come within the scope 
of this chapter to give even a brief outHne of the Boer 
War, as it may fairly be assumed that my readers are 
acquainted with those volumes of The Times History 
of the War in South Africa which have already appeared. 
Yet some indication of the general situation in Cape 
Colony at the time of Major Vandeleur's landing, 
January 17, must be given, if we are clearly to under- 
stand the work he was called upon to perform. 

Methuen was holding on at Modder River with the 
1st Division and a force safeguarding the single line of 
railway connecting him with De Aar and Capetown. 
Gatacre was similarly holding Sterkstroom and the 
railway to East London. Between these two distant 
bodies, French had for two months been playing a 
most skilful game against superior Boer forces near 
Colesberg, and had succeeded by a policy of bluff and 
bold tactics in preventing the invasion of the southern 
districts of Cape Colony. At Naauwpoort he held the 
railway line to Port Elizabeth. 

The 6th Division under General Kelly-Kenny landed 
early in January. The 7th Division under General 
Tucker was due to reach Capetown later in the month, 
as also several artillery and other units. The gth 
Division was in process of formation. In fact there 
were plenty of regulars at or hurrying to the theatre of 
operations, but they could not yet be called a field army. 
The Cavalry Division was gradually collecting, but 
there was still a sad dearth of mounted troops — owing 
to the policy which had dictated the famous telegram 
to the colonies, " infantry preferred." Lord Roberts 
therefore set to work to make good this deficiency by 
converting 4000 regular infantry soldiers into eight 
battahons of mounted infantry. These men were at 

R 



258 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

first as untrained as their recently landed horses, but 
in process of time developed into an admirable force. 
He like\\dse raised a number of South African Colonial 
Corps during January. But, to enable his army to 
move through an inhospitable country without a rail- 
wa}^, the greatest necessity was a ser\dce of mobile 
transport, and this he directed Lord Kitchener to 
prepare the very day after they reached Capetown. 

The Commander-in-Chief's plan was to strike at 
Bloemfontein in the heart of the Free State from the 
western railway between Orange River and Modder 
River, wdth 30,000 men — his object being to interpose 
this force between Cronje's 9000 Boers at Magersfontein 
and Kimberley and their base. The march to Bloem- 
fontein, 100 miles, would also place him in rear of 7000 
Boers near Colesberg and give him possession of the 
railwa}' through the Free State. To be successful, this 
flank march within striking distance of Cronje must be 
sprung upon the Boers as a complete surprise and then 
be carried out with the utmost rapidity. To move 
slowly to a flank and give the enemy time to concen- 
trate upon it at leisure was the very thing which Lord 
Roberts meant to avoid : and, contrary to other 
experiences in the campaign, he did avoid it. The 
result was complete and altogether dramatic. In a 
single week (February 11 to iS) the whole face of the 
war was altered to our advantage. Cronje's flight was 
arrested at Paardeberg, where 4141 Boers subsequently 
surrendered as prisoners of war : Bloemfontein was 
captured : and all the Commandos south of the Orange 
River retreated north in a panic. 

The story of this success is so simple, so obvious 
and so natural, when narrated at this distance of time 
and in the light of our present information, that we are 
apt to forget the situation as it presented itself before 



IN THE BOER WAR 259 

Lord Roberts took command. But the fact is that the 
Battle of Paardeberg could not have been won by him 
or by any one else until the army in Cape Colony was 
fundamentally re-organised, and this was particularly 
the case with regard to the transport. Therefore, as 
Vandeleur was one of the first officers selected for this 
special duty, we will revert to the beginning of January 
and consider the condition of this service. 

Just as the heterogeneous assemblage of battalions, 
batteries and squadrons did not constitute an efficient 
field army, so likewise a quantity of waggons, mules, 
oxen, harness and " boys " — scattered over a wide area 
— did not produce mobile transport. The fault, if 
any, lay with the erroneous conception with which we 
started to fight the Boers at the outset of the war, not 
with the Army Service Corps whose work throughout 
the operations was admirable. The original Army- 
Corps sent out from home was provided with an 
adequate transport for the campaign it was intended to 
undertake — involving a march up the central railway 
from the coast to Bloemfontein and Pretoria. Its 
transport, as well as the Supply Department was placed, 
in accordance with the carefully planned system of the 
British Army, under the senior Army Service Corps 
officer attached to the General's staff. Thus supply 
and transport were twin-brothers working hand-in-hand 
which in a small force is an excellent arrangement. 
The scheme was elaborate in detail and carried out the 
principle of decentralisation to its logical conclusion. 
Each battalion, brigade and division was allotted a 
separate set of vehicles for its own exclusive use. The 
waggons when handed over to a battalion became 
practically its property during the campaign, and were 
looked after by one of its officers. Hence the system 
came to be called the regimental system, and was much 



26o . SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

favoured by regimental officers. The waggons accom- 
panied the battaUon wherever it went but, as they only 
carried food for two days, required constant replenish- 
ing. This was provided for by supply columns which 
accompanied the brigade or division, carrying rations 
to the regimental waggons from the real carriers of the 
army's food and forage — namely the supply park. The 
latter moved in rear and drew upon the railways. 

The merit of the system was that battalions always 
had waggons at their disposal, that the personnel of 
these waggons was in charge of the battalions which 
employed it, and that the officers in most cases took 
a pride in the well-being of the animals. But it also 
had grave defects. It frittered away a quantity of 
vehicles in supply columns and much time was spent 
in loading and unloading ; it wasted the waggons of the 
numerous battalions and brigades which have to remain 
stationary during long periods in any campaign ; and 
it was practically inapplicable to South Africa where 
one part of the army, holding railways, bridges and 
lines of block-houses could do with only a few carts, 
whereas another part, being perpetually on trek in 
pursuit of Boers, required more than the regulation 
allowance of transport. Thus, the regimental system 
provided for a set of conditions which it was hoped 
would prevail but was too inelastic to cope with the 
actualities of the war. 

On the other hand, the system favoured by the new 
Commander-in-Chief and his Chief of the Staff was no 
copy of either Indian or Egyptian methods, but was 
dictated solely by the necessities of the situation. They 
found their transport squandered about the country, 
fixed to diminutive units and incapable of being rapidly 
concentrated for the surprise march on Bloemfontein 
which they were determined to carry out. Yet success 



IN THE BOER WAR 261 

in war so largely depends upon strategic surprise that 
a system which impedes it must be fundamentally 
faulty. It was therefore decided to impound the 
regimental waggons, except the First Line Transport — 
viz. : water-carts, ammunition-carts, ambulances and 
the technical vehicles of engineer and other units, all 
of which are part of their indispensable equipment. 
The supply columns were likewise impounded from 
brigades and divisions, and the whole of the mule- 
waggons thus withdrawn were reformed into companies 
of forty-nine each, under a major or captain specially 
detailed to command them. Thus the mobile transport 
was amalgamated into one service under the Director 
of Transport, who also controlled the supply-park, 
consisting of ox- waggons. Such a serious change on 
the eve of a campaign could only be justified by con- 
siderations of paramount weight, which were not at 
the time understood by the regimental officers whose 
waggons were taken from them, or by those depart- 
mental officers who were wedded to the system which 
they knew. But Vandeleur and others quahfied to 
judge by service in the Transport, soon became con- 
vinced that the elasticity of the newer system 
outweighed the inconveniences of the change and 
justified — on active service — the principle upon 
which it was founded. For, when shorn of its 
highly technical details, a mobile transport is merely 
the carrier of food and forage from the nearest avail- 
able depot to the mouths of the soldier and the horse 
in the fighting hne. The ownership of the waggon is 
of minor importance provided the soldier is fed, and 
fed he was throughout the war with remarkable regu- 
larity, in spite of numerous difficulties, by the new 
companies which combined the duties of regimental 
transport and supply column under one officer. The 



262 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

latter's business was to maintain touch \\ith the men he 
had to feed, however scattered they might be ; to be 
posted \nth the latest information regarding probable 
moves and the position of the supply-park ; to replenish 
empty waggons wherever possible; to feed and care 
for his mules (ten to each waggon) ; to pay his non- 
commissioned officers and Cape-bo3^s ; and to know 
exactly where all his waggons were when detached on 
odd jobs. It meant plenty of work for an active man 
during such a campaign as we were engaged in, and 
necessitated an intelligent appreciation of coming 
events. 

In the middle of January- 1900 Vandeleur was posted 
to the command of one of these companies at De Aar 
during the process of its formation, and we ^^ill now 
follow his fortunes to Bloemfontein and beyond. 

De Aar, a horrible, dusty, wind-swept railway 
junction, connecting Kimberley, Naauwpoort and 
Capetown, one of those necessary camps on the lines 
of connnunication which ever}^ officer and man is 
always longing to leave, was the scene of feverish 
activity during the reorganisation. A mule company, 
complete \\ith animals, equipment and />crsonnti 
takes time to create, and, as forty of them were in 
process of formation in various places and in a great 
hurr\', Vandeleur had to keep alert to avoid being left 
out of the scramble for essential necessaries. By the 
end of January his company was ready to march to 
Orange- River Station. Several of the American and 
Italian mules died on the journey though the waggons 
were empty, but SeMiiour reached his destination in 
good time and found himself in the vortex of the gi'eat 
concentration earh' in February. Troop-trains from 
Capeto\\*n, Naauwpoort and other places were per- 
petually passing through and depositing their loads at 



IN THE BOER WAR 263 

various camps between Orange River and Modder. At 
last the Headquarter Staff arrived, Vandeleur was 
hurriedly ordered to Graspan thirty miles north, and 
on February 11 found himself attached to Kelly- 
Kenny's 6th Division as its senior transport officer for 
the march. Next day the army of 30,000 combatants 
quitted the railway in an easterly direction to Ramdam, 
and Vandeleur noted in his diary the impressive 
spectacle which it presented on the move. 

As far as the eye could see the veldt was alive with 
troops. Thin clouds of dust some miles in front marked 
the progress of the cavalry division, screening the 
movement with its widely extended squadrons ; thicker 
dust-clouds denoted infantry brigades toiling slowly 
behind ; whilst the thickest and blackest were raised 
by loaded mule waggons straining in rear. Ramdam's 
lake afforded ample water for the night's bivouac, and 
next day the army moved on across the Riet, where 
Vandeleur had his first experience of the difficulty 
attending the passage of a " drift " by a crowd of waggons, 
one by one. South African rivers are mostly deep, 
wide ditches along the bottom of which flows a few 
feet of water ; they are very rarely bridged, and a drift 
is merely a place where the steep bank has been cut 
down to a ford. These are few in number and cannot 
be negotiated by more than one vehicle at a time. Thus 
at Waterval Drift Vandeleur had to work all night to 
get his baggage across the Riet and on to Wagdrei, 
where it bivouacked on the 14th. The same night at 
11.30 his Division started for Modder River to relieve 
the cavalry at Klip Drift and enable French to make 
his dash for Kimberley. On the 15th Kimberley was 
relieved and Cronje bolted from Magersfontein, in a 
panic, across our front to reach his base at Bloem- 
fontein. On the i6th we fought his rearguard all day. 



264 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Throughout the 17th we pursued him in hot haste and 
continued the pursuit through most of the night to 
Paardeberg Drift. On the i8th we pinned him to his 
laager b}^ a desperate infantry attack, simultaneously 
heading him off with a cavalry brigade from Kimberley. 
During this strenuous week neither troops nor 
transport had a decent sleep or a square meal ; but 
Kimberle}^ was relieved, Cronje surrounded, the British 
had gained their first real success, and Roberts stood 
by till his foe should be compelled to surrender. This 
occurred on February 27, the anniversary of our 
Majuba defeat, and as Vandeleur was an eye-\ntness 
of the event an extract from his diary will be of 
interest — 

"... A great deal of firing was heard at 3 a.m. 
wliich proved to be the Canadians attacking the 
trenches. They got within sixty -j'^ards and the 
Engineers dug a trench which enfiladed the Boer lines. 
I rode out at dawn to our first line on Battery Hill and 
joined Colonel Higson commanding the 13th Brigade 
and his aide-de-camp, who were meeting a flag of truce 
brought out by two Boers. Their letter of surrender 
was at once sent on to Lord Roberts, who directed 
Cronje himself to appear. The two Boers on rather 
nice ponies rode back to the laager, and in some excite- 
ment we awaited Cronje's arrival, at a point about a 
thousand yards from his Unes. In about half an 
hour P. Cronje and another appeared. He was rather 
fat, red-faced above liis beard, a hard-looking man 
in blue serge trousers, brown boots, yellow overcoat and 
big felt hat with orange ribbon, riding a grey pon5^ He 
only spoke Dutch and, after a hurried ' good-morning ' 
rode off \\ith a staff officer to Lord Roberts, \\'ith whom 
he breakfasted. AU details of the surrender were left 







-.;^yary^. 



THE BOEK LAAGER AT PAARDEBERG ON THE 
MORNING OF THE SURRENDER 

From a Photogravh nv Sf.ymour Vandeleik 



IN THE BOER WAR 265 

with Commandant Wolmarans and General Kelly- 
Kenny with whom I returned to breakfast. Then I 
rode down with him to the drift where the Boers were 
collected, carrying their blankets and a few necessaries. 
The Buffs, acting as guard, formed up in line some 
distance from them. The Boers were distributed in 
parties and counted. Result — Free Staters 1131, 
Transvaalers 2620, Passed down the river (not counted 
by us) 250, wounded 140. Total = 4141. It was a 
great sight and they were a fine-looking lot of men." 

During the operations which culminated in this 
result the 6th Division had suffered its full share of 
casualties ; Vandeleur's transport had come under a 
very accurate and disagreeable pompom fire from the 
Boer laager, and was only saved from a stampede by 
his promptitude and presence of mind. 

The day following Cronje's capitulation the Boers 
in Natal also gave way, Ladysmith was relieved and 
Roberts' army began to look wistfully towards Bloem- 
fontein. But a disaster to half the supply-park at 
Waterval Drift, where 170 loaded ox-waggons were 
destroyed or captured by De Wet on February 15, 
had curtailed the available rations and forage and 
rendered a delay imperative. Moreover, heavy rains 
turned the veldt into a quagmire and seriously impeded 
the reduced transport service plying from both Modder 
and Kimberley to Paardeberg, and, though the troops 
were put on half-rations and the animals on a quarter 
of their forage allowance, no sufficient accumulation 
of supplies had been made to warrant an immediate 
advance. Meanwhile the Boers were concentrating 
at Poplar Grove to dispute our progress; the Presi- 
dents of the two Republics were in the field with 
their commandos, exhorting them to stand and defend 



266 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

the capital ; and everything pointed to a stubborn 
encounter when, on March 7, the army deployed for a 
carefully planned attack on the Boer flank. But, owing 
to various tactical delays which Lord Roberts deplored 
more than any one, the enemy were merely manoeuvred 
out of their position and permitted to retreat unscathed 
— pursued by us at a leisurely pace. At Driefontein, 
however, on the loth we again came up with them, and 
this time a vigorous attack, driven home with great 
spirit by the 6th Division, inflicted a loss of over 
100 killed and more wounded, and pushed the 
Boers in headlong flight from their kopjes to Bloem- 
fontein and beyond. Vandeleur was with his divisional 
staff — the proper place for the senior transport officer 
in an action — and remained under fire most of the day. 
His waggons also received the unwelcome attentions of 
a certain Creusot gun, which burst shells over them at 
6000 yards range and caused them to shift with con- 
siderable alacrity. 

Next day the army continued its march, and 
Bloemfontein was occupied without further opposition. 
At six in the evening the Guards Brigade, having 
covered thirty-seven miles in twenty-six consecutive 
hours, entered the town, and next morning Pole-Carew 
with the Grenadiers, Scots Guards and four guns moved 
by train 100 miles to Springfontein, where he met 
Gatacre's scouts from the south. This feat was made 
possible by the daring of Major Hunter- Weston, who 
with a party of ten mounted sappers blew up a culvert 
on the railway north of Bloemfontein before the Boers 
evacuated, and thus secured eleven engines and 100 
trucks which were of the utmost value. 

During the pause of six weeks which occurred before 
Roberts was ready to begin liis great march to Johannes- 
burg and Pretoria a number of minor engagements 



IN THE BOER WAR 267 

took place in the south of the Free State. Ladybrand 
was occupied by our cavalry : Karree Siding, north of 
Bloemfontein, was taken possession of by the 7th 
Division, which ousted the Boers : Sauna's Post was 
the scene of an unfortunate surprise, in which we lost 
eight guns and much transport : Reddersburg was a 
most " regrettable incident," in which 400 of Gatacre's 
men surrendered : Wepener was strenuously attacked 
but gallantly held by Brabant's Colonials. Meanwhile 
the bulk of the army remained at Bloemfontein, railway 
communication with Cape Colony was re-opened, 
reinforcements of men, horses, mules and supplies were 
brought up, and all was made ready for the next stage 
of the campaign. 

During his stay in Bloemfontein Vandeleur was 
much gratified by hearing from Kelly-Kenny that he 
had been mentioned in despatches, and the general 
added a warm tribute of congratulation on his manage- 
ment of the transport throughout the previous opera- 
tions. Then Lord ErroU, who was appointed to com- 
mand a brigade of the Yeomanry on its way out from 
home, offered him the post of Brigade-Major, but 
Kitchener declared that transport was a far more 
important service and refused to sanction the proposal. 
On the same day the following ofhcial telegram from 
the War Office was put into Seymour's hands—" Will 
you accept transfer as senior captan new Irish Guards 
Regiment ? " This meant promotion from junior 
captain in the Scots Guards at once and a certainty of 
further advancement in the near future, but he hesitated 
a great deal before replying, on account of his affection 
for his old regiment and his dislike of leaving it. It 
was, however, a comphment to be selected for transfer 
and, as an Irishman, Seymour was very proud of the 
honour— so he telegraphed his acceptance on the 



268 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

condition that he should continue on special service 
during the remainder of the war. 

Meanwhile Kitchener had another post in \dew for 
him, that of Senior Transport officer on the staff of 
Major-General Hutton, just appointed to command the 
1st Mounted Infantry Brigade. It was in process of 
formation and was to consist of the following troops : 

ist Brigade Mounted Infantry 

1st Mounted Infantry Corps {Lieut. -Colonel Alderson). 

I St Battalion Mounted Infantry ; ist Canadian Mounted Rifles ; 

2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles ; Strathcona's Horse. 

2nd Mounted Infantry Corps (Lieut. -Colonel De Lisle). 
6th Battalion Mounted Infantry ; New South Wales Mounted 
Rifles ; West Australian Mounted Infantry. 

yd Mounted Infantry Corps {Lieut. -Colonel Pilchcr). 
3rd Battalion Mounted Infantry ; Queensland Mounted Rifles ; 
New Zealand Mounted Infantry. 

4th Mounted Infantry Corps {Li cut. -Col on el Henry). 
4th Battalion Mounted Infantry ; South Australian Mounted 
Rifles ; Victorian Mounted Rifles ; Tasmanian Mounted 
Infantiy. 
Also a Battery, R.H.A. ; four sections Pompoms. R.A. ; twenty 
Machine Guns ; one company AustraUan Pioneers ; a Bearer Company, 
N.S.W. Army Medical Corps. 

Total = 303 officers, 6076 men, 6347 horses. 

A volume might well be devoted to the organisa- 
tion of Mounted Infantry and another to the services 
rendered by the various corps which were pitch-forked 
into the middle of this campaign, because Britons do 
not give personal service to the State until a war is 
half lost. Everything had to be initiated in a hurry, 
mth a consequent loss of efficiency, driving-power and 
hardness in officers, men and horses. Starting with 
such a handicap, it is remarkable that the two mounted 
infantry brigades were as good as they undoubtedly 
proved themselves, and we are led to the inevitable 
conclusion that if four such units as the one detailed 



IN THE BOER WAR 269 

above had been raised, equipped and trained for one 
year instead of for one week, their mobihty, dash and 
discipHne would have averted our ignominious perform- 
ances at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, and 
might have reduced the duration of the war by a half 
and its cost by £100,000,000 to £200,000,000. This, 
however, is not the place to dilate upon the permanent 
weakness of the British Empire ; nor do I deem it neces- 
sary to pursue Vandeleur from bivouac to bivouac — 
there were no tents — with Hiitton's Brigade which, 
together with French's cavalry, manoeuvred and fought 
as the left wing of Roberts' army (39,000 men) through- 
out its march from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The 
start was made on May i. The Boers were never once 
seriously tackled during this memorable invasion but 
were adroitly manoeuvred out of all their positions ; 
and, as the old saying goes, " they hved to fight another 
day." 

On May 18 the situation was roughly as follows — 
Roberts at Kroonstad ; Buller at Newcastle, Natal ; 
Ian Hamilton at Lindley ; Methuen at Hoopstad ; 
Hunter at Christiania : Maf eking just relieved. The 
country was bare, the railway line was wrecked, and 
the progress of the columns depended on the carrying 
capacity of the transport, whose officers will all their 
lives retain a vivid recollection of nights of struggle in 
almost impassable drifts and days of anxiety to replenish 
their waggons at the supply-park. Meanwhile on May 3 
the mounted force under the able leadership of Hutton 
turned, by a wide circling march, all the Boer positions 
about Brandfort and the Vet River, and, after a stiff 
fight on their flank, forced the enemy into a confused 
retreat towards Kroonstad. It was during such move- 
ments that the organising capacity of Vandeleur became 
apparent and that, through his energy and resource- 



270 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

fulness, the troops were fed as soon as they reached 
their bivouac after an action. To him therefore is due 
a great deal of the credit which the mounted men got 
for their mobihty, for without the prompt supplies with 
which he continually furnished them no wide turning 
movements would have been possible. On the 9th 
Hutton's brigade was joined by the cavalry under 
French, and, thenceforward to the Battle of Diamond 
Hill on June 12 the two were practically united into 
one command under the latter general. Their flank 
movement on the left of the enemy included the action 
of the Zand River, the taking of Kroonstad, the turning 
of the Vaal, the occupation of Johannesburg and 
Pretoria and materially contributed to Lord Roberts' 
successful advance. On the right Ian Hamilton 
circling even further from the centre fought many 
engagements, brushing aside all opposition at Winburg, 
Lindley and Heilbron : whilst at the Battle of Johannes- 
burg his Gordon Highlanders showed that quality of 
stolid, enduring pluck which makes the British soldier 
such a hard man to beat in a protracted campaign. 
Johannesburg and the gold-mines were found intact, 
notwithstanding Boer threats of destruction and the 
problem of the future was to guard the 265 miles of 
railway back to Bloemfontein from the depredations 
of the unbeaten Free Staters. Nevertheless Lord 
Roberts determined to push on at once and occupy 
Pretoria which he did on June 5 — five weeks after 
leaving Bloemfontein. 

After this success most men in England and in the 
army in South Africa believed the war was practically 
over, and so it certainly would have been in any 
organised community in Europe. We held the capitals 
of the two Republics, the main line of railway and all 
the towns on it ; the mines, whose wealth had enabled 



IN THE BOER WAR 271 

the Boers to prepare for the war and keep it going, were 
in our possession ; Kruger and Steyn were fugitive 
presidents, the one in a railway carriage on the Lorenzo 
Marques Hne, the other in the eastern districts of the 
Free State ; the Hollander officials and other hostile 
foreigners had no more stomach for fighting, and were 
leaving the sinking ship after clamouring for arrears of 
pay and " legalising " the monopolies, securities and 
shares which some of them had plundered from the 
Rand. But the back-country, agricultural Boers, the 
men who held the Mausers and required neither govern- 
ment pay nor government rations, had not once been 
properly beaten in a fight to a finish, had rarely seen 
many of their dead comrades lying about as mute 
evidence of disaster, had not yet realised what the 
newspapers call the " horrors of war." They had been 
out-manoeuvred by superior forces and compelled to 
abandon positions which they rAeant to hold, but had 
ridden away with whole skins — fortified by practical 
experience in the field and not much lowered in morale. 
Being of a stubborn race and having become hardened 
and proficient in war now that the weak and incom- 
petent were eliminated, they found themselves still 
amply provided with food, horses and ammunition and 
unable to see why they should give in voluntarily to an 
invader merely because he held the railways and towns 
which they had always disliked. On the contrary, their 
opportunity had at last arrived, and this they proved by 
two long years of incessant guerilla warfare under the 
new and able leaders whom the war had thrown up. 
From Pietersburg in the northern Transvaal to Graafi 
Reinet in southern Cape Colony their raids spread 
gradually east and west and occupied our army without 
pause or respite. From month to month and from 
year to year the scene shifted from place to place ; 



272 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

the commandos dodged, countermarched, disappeared 
in the night to reappear elsewhere ; British columns — 
as obstinate as their opponents- — pursued, surrounded 
and harried them, successfully and unsuccessfully, 
suffering occasional reverses but steadily gaining 
ground till they finally compelled a satisfactory sur- 
render and the complete disarmament of every Boer 
with a rifle. It entailed a long and tedious cam- 
paign which could only be successfully terminated if 
the grit of the British people remained uncompromising 
and enduring. Fortunately it never wavered or failed 
in spite of Pro-Boers and others who counselled peace 
at any price, and thus we at last reached a solution 
which promises permanent, beneficial results to the 
future South African Nation. 

But we must revert to the first days of the occupa- 
tion of Pretoria in order to follow Vandeleur's personal 
experiences in the guerilla war. He remained on 
Hutton's staff and was present at the Battle of Diamond 
Hill, east of Pretoria, where Botha made a gallant 
stand before retiring to Middelburg. He states that 
until remounted his brigade together with the two 
cavalry brigades under French only mustered 1300 
horses fit for duty between them, at the end of their 
arduous march from the south. Meanwhile commandos 
and bands of Boers hovered round Pretoria, Johannes- 
burg and other towns and De Wet in the Free State 
had captured a battalion of the Derbyshire Militia, 
had firmly established himself on the railway and had 
destroyed several trains carrying three weeks' mail 
for the whole army. Hutton was first sent to the 
Magaliesberg Hills, west of Pretoria, to disperse Boer 
bands and join hands with Baden-Powell, on his way 
from Mafeking ; then to the south-east of the capital 
where for three weeks he was daily in touch with and 



IN THE BOER WAR 273 

fighting commandos under Botha to keep the railway- 
intact. During the second week of July occurred the 
unfortunate defeat and capture of one of our detach- 
ments at Zilikat's Nek, where some companies of the 
Lincolnshire Regiment, a squadron of the Greys and 
two Horse Artillery guns surrendered. Minor successes 
of this kind were always magnified by the Boers into 
victories of first-rate importance and had the incon- 
venient result of encouraging their resistance and con- 
siderably prolonging the war. Hutton's command 
had proof of this in a fight the following week, when 
a strong force of Boers under Viljoen made a desperate 
attempt to break through to Pretoria but were re- 
pulsed all along the line. Towards the end of the 
month we find him at Middelburg with more Boers all 
round, but the news of Prinsloo's surrender with 4800 
men to Hunter in the Free State had a discouraging 
effect on the enemy, keeping them quiet in their laagers 
and very wary against surprise. 

Meanwhile in Pretoria a plot was hatched by 
Lieutenant Cordua — a regular officer of the Staat's 
Artillery and a naturahsed German — to capture Lord 
Roberts in the night and carry him off to the enemy's 
camp. It was a mean and dastardly enterprise, for the 
Commander-in-Chief had exercised special clemency in 
permitting Cordua to remain in the town on parole and 
his men to revert to peaceful citizenship, on condition 
they took no further part in hostilities. The reason 
given for this lenient treatment was that the Staat's 
Artillery and Zarps, from whom the conspirators were 
drawn, had represented themselves as the paid servants 
of the Repubhc with no means of hvelihood when the 
Boer government decamped. Cordua was tried in open 
court, found guilty and sentenced to be shot. His 
confederates to the number of 300 were deported to 

s 



274 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Ceylon. Throughout August and September opera- 
tions on a considerable scale were carried out between 
Middelburg and Komati Poort, as also in the Lyden- 
burg and Barberton Districts on both sides of the rail- 
way to Lorenzo Marques. Lord Roberts himself moved 
to Belfast where the Guards Brigade was in bivouac ; 
Buller, advancing through Ermelo, at last reached the 
railway and attacked Dalmanutha, driving away the 
Boers with heavy loss ; Ian Hamilton with a strong 
division of mounted men and infantry arrived at 
Belfast, and Vandeleur was transferred from Hutton's 
Brigade, now much reduced in strength, to Ian 
Hamilton, as staff officer in charge of his numerous 
mule-transport. This was not only promotion to a 
bigger command, but also involved Seymour in the 
active operations which culminated in the capture of 
Lydenburg and occupation of Komati Poort, on the 
border of Portuguese East Africa. Here a parade was 
held by Pole-Carew, in honour of the birthday of the 
King of Portugal, to which a special train conveyed 
Portuguese officers and a number of ladies from the 
coast. After this Vandeleur obtained two days' leave, 
bought a white duck suit at a store and paid a surrepti_ 
tious visit to Lorenzo Marques, where he saw ex- 
President Kruger emerging from the Governor's house, 
where he was living, to go for a drive in the town. The 
place was full of Hollanders, Frenchmen, Italians and 
Irish — lately in the service of our enemies, now strolling 
about with nothing to do. The bay struck Vandeleur 
as quite beautiful and the whole place impressed him 
favourably. 

In October Hamilton's force was broken up in 
Pretoria and Seymour was granted a few months' 
leave to recuperate in England. He selected the Dur- 
ban route, in order to visit the battlefields of Natal. 



ON TREK IN SOUTH AFRICA 



IN THE BOER WAR 275 

Several days were thus spent in riding round the Lady- 
smith Defences and exploring Spion Kop, Pieters Hill, 
Colenso and Majuba, but on reaching Durban early in 
November he was met by a telegram ordering him back 
to Pretoria, in order to take command of a contingent 
of Australian Bushmen serving under General Paget in 
the Rustenburg district. He was delighted at the 
prospect, for — like every ambitious soldier — he was 
longing to obtain an independent command in the 
field. He well knew how great a difference there is 
between the work of the highest staff officer, respon- 
sible for carrying out the orders of another, and that of 
an independent commander acting on his own initiative. 
Moreover, Vandeleur was thoroughly fitted by training, 
experience and his own natural aptitudes for the 
command he desired, and we may therefore judge how 
bitter was his disappointment on learning at Pretoria 
that the G.O.C. on the spot had already filled the post. 
This was perhaps the greatest personal disappointment 
Seymour ever had to face, and he faced it with the 
equanimity and sound good sense which distinguished 
him throughout his career and gave to his character a 
touch of sublime composure, whenever difficulties 
arose. Instead of again starting on his homeward 
journey as nine out of ten other men would have done 
under similar circumstances, he made up his mind to 
stay quietly in Pretoria and, as his real value had 
been appreciated and reported upon by all the generals 
under whom he served, he had not long to wait for re- 
cognition and employment. 

At the end of November Lord Roberts made over the 
army in South Africa to Lord Kitchener and returned 
to London, to take up the appointment of Commander- 
in-Chief. On the 29th Kitchener sent for Vandeleur 
and offered him the command of the 2nd Mounted 



276 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

Infantry Battalion, which happened to be the first to 
fall vacant. It formed part of the 6th Mounted 
Infantry Corps and was at that time engaged with 
Major-General Clements' force against several com- 
mandos under De la Rey. Hopes were held out to 
Vandeleur that, after a period of duty with this batta- 
lion, he might expect promotion to the command of a 
Mounted Infantry Corps or possibly an independent 
column of all arms. But, before he could join from 
Pretoria, Clements was surprised at Nooitgedacht, 
suffering a loss of 400 casualties and of most of his 
horses and mules. Out of 190 men of the 2nd M.L 
present in the action no less than 90 were killed and 
wounded, and the officer acting as its commander was 
shot. It was under these depressing circumstances that 
Seymour took over its command in the Magaliesberg 
Hills, near the scene of the recent fight, and found he 
could muster but 250 men, including the recruits who 
had just joined from Krugersdorp. Our reverse in 
this district, occurring so soon after the capture of 
five infantry companies and two guns by De Wet and 
Steyn at Dewetsdorp in the Free State, fanned the 
flame of guerilla warfare into renewed activity, and 
Vandeleur was almost daily in action right up to the 
end of the year 1900. One description, however, will 
suffice to give the reader some insight into the work 
which constantly engaged the Mounted Infantry. On 
December 19 Clements' force marched to attack a Boer 
position which stretched across a valley from Nooit- 
gedacht to Hekpoort, in the Rustenburg District. 
The 6th Corps started at 3.30 a.m. as advanced guard 
to the main column and crossed the Magalies River, 
with the 2nd M.I. in front, followed by four field guns 
and the 14th M.I. The Boers opened fire from a kopje 
as soon as our men were over the drift. The guns and 



IN THE BOER WAR 277 

14th were brought up to assist, and Vandeleur with 
the 2nd M.I. pushed on through some trees under an 
increasing fire. When he emerged, he saw that his 
forward scouts were already chmbing one of the lower 
knolls and, being a believer in rapid movement under 
fire, he decided to make a dash for the crest-line. A 
mile of open ground separated him from the foot of the 
kopje, and across this he and his M.I. galloped, fired at 
from two distant hills on the flanks. Two horses were 
shot whilst fording a boggy stream, but his troops 
lined the crest without losing a man, just in time to 
forestall 150 Boers coming up from the opposite direc- 
tion. These were routed with considerable loss, one Boer 
being killed at only twenty-five yards' range. At this 
point Seymour was obliged to await reinforcements, as 
the enemy were known to be in strength and French 
required time to cut them off. When the main column 
came up the Boers were hustled and pursued for seven 
miles across country, but as usual they escaped in the 
dark. 

Similar engagements were the order of the day with 
our elusive enemy throughout his native land, and we 
who are now privileged to look back on the event can 
realise how mistaken was our impatience because 
progress was slow. For we had much to learn when 
the war opened, and much more to take to heart when 
it was at last concluded. Great Britain began by 
expecting her sons to beat the enemy without hurting 
him ; to gain victories without suffering casualties 
and to obtain these remarkable results in a few months' 
time and at a moderate price. The lesson of Majuba 
had apparently been forgotten. But the back-country 
Boer was not nurtured on the mawkish sentimentality 
which sometimes masquerades as " magnanimity " in 
London. He called it by the plain Dutch word which 



278 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

signifies " funk " ; and, when England really meant 
business, he regarded it as bluff. If therefore a peace 
had been hastily patched up as soon as Pretoria fell, 
that is before the war had been carried into the home 
of the farmer, he would have remained in ignorance of 
its penalties and a standing menace to peace. Whereas, 
through the prolongation of hostilities and the multipli- 
cation of our mobile columns, the whole country was 
fought over and occupied from end to end. It was a 
disagreeable and hateful task for both officers and 
men and was by no means lightened by the false 
accusations of cruelty which a few stay-at-home 
Englishmen levelled at the troops in the field — with no 
shred of evidence to support them. All through 1900 
the war continued, but, as we are onh' concerned 
with Vandeleur's work, further reference need not be 
made to the general situation. 

In January 1 901 his M.I. Battalion mustered 493 men 
and 527 horses and, still under Clements, was engaged 
in safe-guarding convoys marching to and from Rusten- 
burg through a country infested by De la Rey's com- 
mandos. As a rule they contented themselves with 
sniping from a distance, but every now and then assem- 
bled for a surprise attack either on a railway line, a 
camp or a column of marching ox-waggons. Thus 
on January 24, two days after the death of Queen 
Mctoria, Seymour was out reconnoitring beyond the 
lines at 5 a.m. when he became aware that more Boers 
than usual were on foot, evidenth' concentrating to 
close on the camp. He at once placed his men in 
position to check them, for already their shots were 
inflicting losses on the tethered transport animals. 
\Mien later it became necessary to reinforce the advance 
picquets, Seymour and his Sergeant-Major rode forward 
to a hill in order to dispose the men to the best advan- 



IN THE BOER WAR 279 

tage. Bullets were spattering the rocks, so he cantered 
on to take cover when, suddenly, he had an impression 
of a noise and a blow, then a tremendous blow and 
concussion on the left thigh and he realised he was 
hit. The Sergeant-Major got him off his horse and 
bandaged him with the puggaree of his hat ; but he 
had to lie behind some boulders in very great pain for 
nearly three hours, under constant fire. Eventually 
he was carried back — a perilous journey still under fire 
— and placed in a house around which bullets con- 
tinued singing all day. The one which hit him in the 
morning had penetrated the right hip, travelled down 
the left leg, missing the femoral artery by a fraction 
of an inch and emerged in front of the left thigh. 
Mercifully the thigh bone was not broken, but the 
wound was a very serious and nasty one and was not 
improved next day when he and an officer with enteric 
were jolted in an ambulance along a bad road to 
Krugersdorp Station, en route for the Wanderers Club, 
Johannesburg, in use as an officers' hospital. 

After thus trekking for sixty miles it was indeed a 
comfort to poor Vandeleur to find himself in a hospital 
where every attention was paid to his wants and the 
best medical science could be bestowed on his wound. 
His general health was so good that at the end of a 
month he was well enough to be moved to Capetown, 
where his father met him from England. They sailed 
early in March and, by the time Seymour landed 
at Southampton, he was able to get about without 
assistance. At home in Ireland he mended apace, as 
the weather was fine and his days were mostly spent 
on a yacht. When the " Honours Gazette " appeared, 
and he saw his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant- 
Colonel at the age of thirty-one, his wound was for- 
gotten and he insisted on going before a Medical Board, 



28o SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

with a view to returning to active service at once 
He accordingly sailed on July 13, reached Pretoria on 
August II and dined the same evening with Lord 
Kitchener, whose columns were at last producing 
an appreciable effect on the Boers still under 
arms. 

I append one among many letters in my possession 
showing how Vandeleur was appreciated by those 
under whom he served. It is from Major-General Sir 
Edward Hutton : 

" Dear Colonel Maxse, — It was with mutual 
pleasure to us both that Seymour Vandeleur reported 
himself to me at Bloemfontein early in April 1900 as 
officer in charge of the Transport belonging to the 
large force which, under Lord Roberts' orders, I was 
then organising. It is not easy to do full justice to 
Vandeleur' s remarkable success as Transport officer 
to such a cosmopolitan brigade as mine. It was in 
itself nearly always twice and at one time nearly three 
times the size of a Cavalry Division, composed of 
militia troops from our over-sea self-governing Colonies 
as well as of regular Mounted Infantry, selected from 
twenty-eight British regiments. This Force was one 
especially difficult to handle and doubly difficult to 
administer as regards transport and supply. 

" It was Vandeleur' s able and quick powers of 
organisation and his ready tact in dealing with those 
under him which enabled him to meet all the demands 
made upon his administrative capacity. Personally, 
I never had to give him a single order or to tax him 
with a single oversight during the whole time he was 
Chief Transport Officer. Living with me at the head- 
quarter mess and in constant personal touch with me, 



IN THE BOER WAR 281 

he knew, as by instinct and almost without actual 
orders from my Chief Staff Officer, what was required 
of him and his transport. 

" His capable arrangements for the evacuation of 
sick and wounded from the Field Hospital were not 
the least noteworthy of his services, and the only time 
I had a difference of opinion with Vandeleur was at 
the commencement of the critical action upon May 28, 
igoo, at Oliphants Vlei, before the taking of Johannes- 
burg, when his fighting instinct brought him into the 
firing line and prompted him to abandon for a few 
brief moments his important charge, in order to join 
me in the action. 

" You will realise from what I have written how 
much I owed to Vandeleur for his management of my 
transport. The Mounted Force with which he played 
so leading a part had no Press correspondent to chronicle 
their work, and the splendid service which was rendered 
by them, one and all, has never been realised by the 
Public. 

" I have said nothing of Vandeleur's personal 
character, which I perhaps had better opportunities of 
knowing than many of his friends. He was of those 
highest and noblest types of British officer whom, it 
has been said, ' Britain has never failed to find amongst 
her sons.' The recollection of the high-minded ideal 
cherished by Vandeleur of his mission in life, the 
modesty and the moral strength which were peculiarly 
his characteristics, will ever remain a sacred memory 
to his friends. 

" Believe me, 

" Yours very truly, 

" Edward H. Hutton, Major-General. 

"London, Nov. 3, 1905." 



CHAPTER XII 

THE END 

The war was dragging on to its inevitable conclusion. 
Some tenacious commandos fighting gamely to the end 
took every opportunity of pouncing upon insufficiently 
guarded convoys or wrecking trains for the loot they 
might contain, but many burghers were growing tired 
of the precarious and detestable existence to which they 
were reduced by Kitchener's combination of sweeping 
columns and lines of block-houses. During Vande- 
leur's first week in Pretoria 884 Boers surrendered or 
were captured ; whilst north, south, east and west 
they were being relentlessly harried by our officers and 
men — now hardened and experienced campaigners. 

North of Pretoria the Boer who gave most trouble 
was Commandant Beyers in the difficult and rugged 
country known as the Bush-veldt, and against him a 
strong column under Lt.-Col. Harold Grenfell was 
operating from Nylstroom, having its base on the 
railway. This force was composed of the 2nd, 12th 
and 20th Mounted Infantry BattaHons, Kitchener's 
Fighting Scouts, four field guns and a half battalion 
of infantry. Grenfell, who had been fighting inces- 
santly since the outbreak of hostilities, stood in need of a 
rest, and the Commander-in-Chief was looking about for 
a really good man to succeed him. After carefully con- 
sidering all other claims. Kitchener selected Lieutenant 
Colonel Vandeleur for this post and directed him to 
join the column at Nylstroom when next it came in 



IHKK\l':i LI. -COLONEL SEVMOLK VANDELKUK. n.S.l».. 

IRT^H GUARDS. iQoi 



THE END 283 

touch with that station ; then to accompany it on one 
trek as Grenf ell's subordinate in order to acquaint 
himself with the force, the country and the circum- 
stances ; and then to take command directly Grenfell 
went home on leave. Thus the strenuous work of his 
whole life was to meet with the only reward which 
could satisfy Seymour's legitimate ambition. It came 
to him at the age of thirty-two, when he was young 
enough to feel that his future still lay before him yet 
experienced enough to act with the ripe judgment of 
an old hand ! He had seen much of war and knew its 
difficulties, but to overcome them he possessed, beneath 
a quiet demeanour and never-failing cheerfulness, the 
stern quality of grit without which officers cannot 
successfully command in action. Indeed he was so 
full of hope and delight at the prospect, that the friends 
who were with him before he started from Pretoria 
felt his enthusiasm to be contagious ; and those of us 
who best appreciated his character and brain-power 
were convinced that he would prove himself a brilliant 
commander in the field. 

But our belief in him was not to be tested and con- 
firmed, for he never reached his destination. 

On Friday, August 30, 1901, he lunched and dined 
with Colonel Romilly of the Scots Guards, and went 
down to the railway station at 11 p.m. to sleep in the 
train, which was to start at dawn next morning for 
Nylstroom. After a disturbed night spent in shunting, 
the train of three open trucks and one ordinary corridor- 
coach left Pretoria with its passengers asleep in fancied 
security. They included two ladies returning with 
their children to Pietersburg, Vandeleur, Major Beatson 
and an escort of non-commissioned officers and men in 
the armoured truck next the engine. Besides baggage 
and stores there were also £20,000 in cash, the pay of 



284 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

the troops in the northern district. The train reached 
Waterval North^ sixteen miles from Pretoria, in safety 
and should have waited there until the local com- 
mandant had definite news that the line to the next 
station, Haman's Kraal, thirteen miles, was reported 
clear. The arrangements made for the protection of 
the railway, in addition to the block-houses and the 
defence of each station, were that two native " boys " 
started at midnight from Waterval North and two 
others from Haman's Kraal. They were to meet 
half-way between the stations, exchange passes to 
prove they had met and return to their respective 
commandants to report on the safety of the line. 
Telegrams were then to be exchanged between the 
commandants, and no train ought to have been per- 
mitted to start until all these preliminaries were duly 
completed. Unfortunately on the date in question 
the train left Waterval North before any report or 
telegram had come to hand. 

Meanwhile the notorious train-wrecker Jack 
Hindon, an Irishman, had reached a cutting three 
miles beyond Waterval North with fifty to sixty Boers at 
midnight, and had placed a dynamite mine beneath 
the rails. He and his party then concealed themselves 
in some bushes fifty yards off, leaving a few of their 
number to watch the cutting. When the two scouts 
from Waterval North approached they were imme- 
diately set upon in the dark, taken prisoners and 
flogged. The two scouts from Haman's Kraal reached 
their destination half-way, waited as usual for the 
others to arrive, and then, suspecting mischief, pluckily 
advanced along the railway almost as far as the cutting. 
Here they saw the Boers actually in position on both 
sides of the line just as the train was approaching from 
the opposite direction. The engine panted slowly up 



THE END 285 

the steep gradient towards the trap, whilst on top of 
the cutting the Boers lay concealed by heaps of exca- 
vated earth, ready to fire down on the open trucks. 
The two scouts ran towards the engine holding up 
their hands to try and stop it, but the driver did not 
understand, and the brave " boys " were shot just as 
the mine was exploded beneath the engine — over- 
turning it and the armoured carriage. At the same 
instant a fierce musketry fire was poured into every 
part of the train before its occupants could seize their 
rifles. Both the ladies were wounded. Vandeleur, 
in the adjoining compartment, sprang from his seat and 
rushed out into the corridor — similar to those on our 
English railways — shouting as loud as he could 
" Ladies and men, lie down flat." When he reached 
the door to get out of the carriage and take command 
of the men he was confronted by a Boer named Uys 
with a loaded rifle at his shoulder, and was instantly 
shot dead at two yards' range. Nine non-commis- 
sioned officers and men were killed, two ofiicers, four- 
teen non-commissioned officers and five civilians were 
wounded. Another mine was exploded some distance 
behind to prevent help arriving, and the wreckers 
proceeded to loot and burn the train before they rode 
off. 

Hindon and his gang are branded as murderers and 
robbers, not only for this shameful deed but also on 
account of other similar massacres. They were reputed 
as marauders who feared to fight in the open, but took 
advantage of the state of war to pillage and plunder 
belligerents and civilians alike. 

The survivors of the disaster were soon succoured 
from Pretoria, and Vandeleur's body was reverently 
carried to the capital. On Sunday, September i, it 
was laid to its last rest in the cemetery of the English 



286 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

church, with full military honours. It happened that 
on this day.Vandeleur's old battalion, the 2nd Battalion 
Scots Guards, was moving by train from Springs to 
Potchefstroom and was thus within reach of Pretoria. 
In obedience to a telegram from Lord Kitchener the 
Right Flank company, under Major Godman, was 
brought up by special train to attend the funeral. 
And so it came to pass that the final volleys over his 
grave were fired by the very comrades whom he would 
have wished for and that the regiment of which he 
had been so bright an ornament had at least the mourn- 
ful satisfaction of paying its last tribute to his memory. 
The Commander-in-Chief, who loved his subordinate, 
was present with the headquarters staff and all the 
officers of the garrison ; and a more impressive cere- 
mony, or one tinged with a deeper sorrow and a truer 
regret it would be difficult to conceive. 

Men of Seymour Vandeleur's stamp do not die in 
their beds and it is in accordance with the hfe they have 
chosen that they should meet death in the discharge of 
duty, and in the service of their count r}-. But in Van- 
deleur's case it is bitter to think that when the end 
came he did not fall in the fair field of battle, where 
his life had been risked on so many occasions. To 
be the victim of a pitiful highway robbery, murdered 
in cold blood without the chance of reprisal by a 
dastardly scoundrel who wrecked trains for loot — such 
is not the kind of death which his friends can contem- 
plate without a feehng of vengeance in their hearts. 
Yet, after all, it is a man's Hfe not his death that 
matters, and the memory of Se\Tnour Vandeleur as he 
^vas — a bright, ambitious, happy companion — still 
lingers with those wiio follow his calhng and s^-mpa- 
thise with his spirit. To them he will ever remain an 
example of straight, young manhood and of a hfe 



THE END 287 

spent in the pursuit of that which is best and highest 
in the profession he loved, heedless of any notoriety 
it might happen to bring him. To those who have 
read this memoir of his short career it will be obvious 
that he possessed a tenacious purpose through life, 
that he was rapidly developing along the natural lines 
of his character and that he had emerged, a distinct 
personality, from the junior ranks of the army. But 
by those who worked with him for years in different 
places and had the best opportunities of judging his 
strength, Vandeleur's death is recognised as a distinct 
loss to his country. Viewed in this light it was a 
public calamity, though this was known to few outside 
his profession. 

In these pages I have endeavoured to place before 
my readers the story of his life, not in the form of a bio- 
graphy but rather by narrating the events in which he 
took part and discussing the problems which absorbed 
him. This I feel sure is what he himself would have 
preferred to a more personal narrative, dwelling less on 
the work than on the man. Indeed one purpose of 
this book is to afford to Vandeleur's countrymen a 
glimpse of what is being done by hundreds of picked 
officers, who are the real builders of the Dependencies 
and Crown Colonies of our Empire. They long ago 
laid the foundations upon which our Indian Dominion 
was reared; they are now toiling ceaselessly and suc- 
cessfully in such places as Somaliland, Uganda, East 
Africa, Nigeria, The Egyptian Sudan — in fact wherever 
the Union Jack flies. Sometimes recognised but more 
often snubbed by official England, their names are 
unknown to the British Pubhc and rightly so, because 
men should not acquire notoriety for merely doing 
their duty well. Their reward is in the knowledge 
that they are sowing seed which will ripen into an 



288 SEYMOUR VANDELEUR 

abundant harvest whose true value will be appre- 
ciated by future generations of Britons. When, how- 
ever, one of their number is cut off in the prime 
of his manhood and with his promise unfulfilled, it 
is meet that the story of his hfe should be recorded 
— as an instance of the toll exacted by Empire and a 
reminder to us who sit at home that there still are men 
whose pride it is to render service to the State. 



Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited 
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